A Beijing court ruled against Apple this week by upholding the validity of a patent held by Zhizhen Internet Technology, clearing the way for the Chinese company to continue its own case against Apple for infringing intellectual property rights.

Apple took Zhizhen to court seeking a ruling that Zhizhen's patent rights to a speech recognition technology were invalid, according to Reuters.

The Beijing First Intermediate Court ruled in Zhizhen's favor however, according to a report released by the People's Daily state newspaper.

"Unfortunately, we were not aware of Zhizhen's patent before we introduced Siri (speech recognition technology) and we do not believe we are using this patent," said a Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman in a statement to Reuters.

Zhizhen sued the California company back in 2012 for intellectual property rights infringement. The company claimed Apple's Siri used on devices including the iPhone violated patents for its own voice system.

Apple plans on taking the case to the Beijing Higher People's Court, Apple said after the verdict, according to the newspaper.

"While a separate court considers this question, we remain open to reasonable discussions with Zhizhen," the Apple spokeswoman said.

Zhizhen doesn't exactly have a problem with how Siri works, rather the way in which a person's speech is recognized and analyzed.

The Shanghai-based company hasn't commented yet about the ruling. 

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