Samsung Galaxy S4 & Google Now accused of violating Apple patents for Siri

Two of the patents specifically relate to Apple's voice-driven Siri personal assistant, as noted on Wednesday by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents. They are U.S. Patent No. 8,086,604, and U.S. Patent No. 6,846,959, both of which are entitled "Universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system."

Beyond Siri, the filing also alleges the infringement of three other Apple-owned patents:

• U.S. Patent No. 5,666,502: "Graphical user interface using historical lists with field classes"
• U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647: "System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data"
• U.S. Patent No. 7,761,414: "Asynchronous data synchronization amongst devices"

Apple filed the motion to amend its infringement complaint in a California court on Tuesday. It simply seeks to add Samsung's recently released Galaxy S4 to the existing complaint, which already targets numerous other Samsung products.

"The Galaxy S4 product practices many of the same claims already asserted by Apple… in the same way as the already-accused Samsung devices," the filing states.

As for the inclusion of Google Now, the '604 and '959 patents related to Siri are also included in the filing because Google Now has replaced the Android Quick Search Box in some instances. That search box was previously targeted by Apple in its complaint.

A hearing to discuss Apple's motion has been scheduled for June 25 in a San Jose court in front of Judge Paul S. Grewal.

Apple first signaled to the court last week that it intended to add the Galaxy S4 to its existing patent infringement suit. This week's formal filing has revealed exactly what five patents the iPhone maker has accused Samsung's latest smartphone of violating.