Apple has filed a patent application to seek ownership of the technology and features behind its popular voice-controlled personal assistant Siri. Siri can be found on many iOS devices.
The company’s extensive 51-page application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is entitled “Intelligent Automated Assistant.” The patent application continuation, discovered this week by AppleInsider, describes a system that “engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions.”
The filing describes the features of the software, and includes screenshots of the original Siri iPhone application that Apple purchased.
Dag Kittlaus, one of the co-founders of the original Siri company that Apple acquired, is listed among the inventors on the application. Kittlaus left Apple last year after the iPhone 4S and Siri debuted.
In the application, Apple notes that smartphones have multiple applications, each with its own user interface, which can be “burdensome to learn or overwhelming for users.”
“Many users may have difficulty even discovering what functionality and/or information is available on their electronic devices or on various websites,” the filing states. “Thus, such users may become frustrated, overwhelmed, or may simply be unable to use the resources available to them in an effective manner.”
Apple lists their solution as a personal assistant that talks to the user in a conversational style, and can engage with the user through speech, graphics, and text.
The filing was first made by Apple in June of this year, and is a continuation of a patent filing made in January of 2011. Other associated patents date back as far as 2006. In addition to Kittlaus, the proposed invention is credited to Thomas Robert Gruber, Adam John Cheyer, Didier Rene Guzzoni, Christopher Dean Brigham, Richard Donald Giuli, Marcello Bastea-forte, and Harry Joseph Saddler.
