Parus Holdings Inc. has sued Apple for patent infringement. The company states that any Apple product that integrates Siri is infringing upon their patents originally acquired from Webley Systems, Inc.

They list the infringing products as "Those Apple products include at least the Apple iPhone X or later models, the Apple iPhone 6s or later models, iPad Pro 12.9 inch (3rd Generation), iPad Pro 11-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd Generation), iPad Pro 10.5 inch, iPad Pro 9.7 inch, iPad (6th Generation), all Apple Watches, all HomePods, CarPlay, MacBook Pro (15 inch, 2018), MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports), MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018), and iMac Pro. (Apple Accused Products)."

Each of the Apple Accused Products listed above in conjunction with Siri is a system for retrieving information from pre-selected web sites by uttering speech commands into a voice enabled device and providing users with retrieved information in an audio form via said voice enabled device as required by claim 1 of the ‘431 Patent.

In particular, the complaint states that "Defendant Apple has directly infringed, and is continuing to directly infringe, literally or under the doctrine of equivalents, at least independent claim 1 of Parus’s ’431 Patent by making, using, selling, and/or offering for sale its Apple smartphone devices with Siri in the United States, in violation of 35 U.S.C. § 271(a)."

Patent '431 Claim #1

Below is what patent '431 Claim #1 actually states in full:

"A system for retrieving information from pre-selected web sites by uttering speech commands into a voice enabled device and for providing to users retrieved information in an audio form via said voice enabled device, said system comprising: a computer, said computer operatively connected to the internet; a voice enabled device operatively connected to said computer, said voice enabled device configured to receive speech commands from users; at least one speaker-independent speech recognition device, said speaker-independent speech recognition device operatively connected to said computer and to said voice enabled device; at least one speech synthesis device, said speech synthesis device operatively connected to said computer and to said voice enabled device; at least one instruction set for identifying said information to be retrieved, said instruction set being associated with said computer, said instruction set comprising: a plurality of pre-selected web site addresses, each said web site address identifying a web site containing said information to be retrieved; at least one recognition grammar associated with said computer, each said recognition grammar corresponding to each said instruction set and corresponding to a speech command; said speech command comprising an information request selectable by the user; said speaker-independent speech recognition device configured to receive from users via said voice enabled device said speech command and to select the corresponding recognition grammar upon receiving said speech command; said computer configured to retrieve said instruction set corresponding to said recognition grammar selected by said speaker-independent speech recognition device; said computer further configured to access at least one of said plurality of web sites identified by said instruction set to obtain said information to be retrieved, said computer configured to first access said first web site of said plurality of web sites and, if said information to be retrieved is not found at said first web site, said computer configured to sequentially access said plurality of web sites until said information to be retrieved is found or until said plurality of web sites has been accessed; said speech synthesis device configured to produce an audio message containing any retrieved information from said pre-selected web sites, and said speech synthesis device further configured to transmit said audio message to said users via said voice enabled device."

The two patents Apple is allegedly infringing are 7,076,431 and 9,451,084. Although those quoted patents show Parus Holdings as the assignee, the patents were in fact under a single acquired patent 6,721,705 from Webley systems, Inc.

For more details in this patent infringement case, review the full formal complaint filed with the court below, courtesy of Patently Apple.

   Parus Holdings Inc. v. Apple Inc - Patent Infringement by Jack Purcher on Scribd

Notice: Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of patent infringement lawsuits which are part of the public record for journalistic news purposes. A lawyer should be consulted for in-depth analysis.