Zhi Zhen Internet Technology is a company you’ve probably never heard of. According to them they have a patent that was issued in 2004 that Apple is violating with Siri. They aren’t a patent troll either, they actually operate a service in China called “Xiao i Robot”. Earlier this week it was revealed that Apple would have to pay Proview $60 million over the iPad trademark; we said that it would send a signal to other Chinese companies to take Apple to court and try and get some easy money. We didn’t know it would happen so damn quickly. Zhi Zhen claims to have sent Apple a letter concerning this patent violation in May. They haven’t heard back, so … time to rake in the cash!
Seriously, this is disgusting. People get pissed at people who take advantage of tax loopholes, so why aren’t we pissed at companies who take advantage of the patent system? And before you say “but everyone is doing it!”, we should point out the judge who presided over the Apple v. Motorola case recently told Reuters that he thinks the patent system is fundamentally broken. We tend to agree with him. Companies should compete with each other based on the quality of their products, not the size of their patent portfolio. Does anyone reading this actually think that Samsung no longer being able to sell their Galaxy Nexus in the United States is a good thing?
Like we said earlier, you can expect to hear about a bunch of Chinese companies suing Apple now that it’s been proven that you can make money off them. How will Apple react to all this litigation? That remains to be seen, but we think there’s going to be a lot of back-room deals taking place with the people sitting at the top.
[Via: Boy Genius Report]