Apple settles Siri case for $24.9 million

Apple has decided to pay $24.9 million in settlements over Siri patent infringement. The company will pay this amount to Dynamic Advances, which started a lawsuit against Apple in 2012.

Dynamic Advance sued because it holds a patent from New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which in turn holds a patent for the work of a professor at the institute. The patent describes a natural language interface that uses an ’embedded lexicon of results’.

The decision to comply with the settlements comes a month before the case is due to go to court. Apple will initially pay $5 million to Dynamic Advances’ parent company, the Marathon Patent Group, if the case is settled. Then the rest will follow.

Part of the agreement is that Apple has a license to continue to use the technology in Siri and will no longer be involved in the same patent for the next three years.

For the time being, Rensselaer has not agreed to the proposed ratio of the agreement, whereby fifty percent of the amount will be paid out to the institute and legal advisers. Rensselaer obtained the patent on the technology in 2007, after which Dynamic Advances obtained an exclusive license on the patent in 2011. Siri saw the light of day for consumers in October 2011 on the iPhone and iPad.