Apple has had a rough year so far in its Chinese market, with lawsuits piling up against them.
The Cupertino, California company has been sued by two more Chinese companies after having recently settled a lawsuit with another.
China's Zhi Zhen Internet Technology company filed a case against Apple on Thursday, claiming that the company infringed on its voice assistance service patents through its Siri app. This comes after another lawsuit reported only days ago from Jiangsu Xeubao, a company that has accused Apple of infringing on its trademark of Snow Leopard, the name of an OS Apple introduced three years ago.
These lawsuits follow behind Apple's latest agreement to pay $60 million to Proview Technology, ending a two-year rift between the companies regarding the trademark ownership of the iPad name in China.
According to Zhi Zhen, it applied for a patent for its voice assistance system, called Ziao i Robot, eight years prior. The company says that they sent Apple a notice in regards to the issue in May, but was never given a response.
Following their disregard for the letter, Apple later revealed that it would add Mandarin and Cantonese versions of Siri to phone users in China.
In regards to the Snow Leopard lawsuit, Jiangsu Xeubao is looking to get an $80,000 settlement along with an apology out of Apple, for its alleged infringement on the Snow Leopard trademark.
The Chinese company claimed it registerered "Xuebao", the Chinese word for Snow Leopard, in 2000 and that Apple tried doing the same in 2008 but were unsuccessful. Jiangsu Xeubao is using this against Apple in hopes of winning the lawsuit.
After paying a large settlement of $60 million to end the iPad dispute, Apple will probably have no problem settling on $80,000 to end the Snow Leopard dispute.
