London Cranes Media

Sunday, Mar 03rd

Last update:19:30:11 GMT

Apple sued by Taiwanese over FaceTime technology

LBG, GMA News

Apple logo Is FaceTime, Apple Inc.'s video calling software, based on technology "stolen" from a Taiwanese man?

A report on tech site Micgadget.com said the Taiwanese, who it identified only by his surname Lee, accused Apple of violating his technology patent in its FaceTime.

Micgadget.com cited an article on Chinese-language site QQ Tech indicating the Intermediate People�s Court in Zhenjiang confirmed accepting the case on July 31, and that it has notified Apple.

The first hearing will be held in September, the report said.

"Lee is a technician of a Taiwanese tech company, he needed to travel aboard to various cities for work, therefore he always made international call(s) to his company, parents and friends. Due to this reason, Lee was inspired and came up with an idea of implementing (an) Internet call feature on phones. Subsequently, he applied a patent for this idea in 2003," it quoted Lee's lawyer as saying.

In the report, Lee claimed to hold a patent on �voice network personal digital assistant� technology.

At that time in 2003, the patent supposedly belonged to the company that Lee was working for, but the company has transferred the patent to his name.

For now, Lee did not disclose the amount of compensation he is seeking from Apple, but demanded that Apple stop its "violation."

Lee claimed he found out about Apple's supposed violation of his patent after he recently bought an iPhone 4S in Zheijiang.

This was the fourth lawsuit Apple has encountered in China, Micgadget said.

Apple also faces lawsuits from Jiangsu Xuebao (Chinese Household Chemical Company) over the Chinese name of Snow Leopard, a Shanghai-based voice assistant developer Zhizhen Network Technology over the patent of Siri, and another Siri patent infringement lawsuit from Taiwan�s National Cheng Kung University (NCKU).