Siri, Do You Accept This Lawsuit Against You?

Siri's response: "I don't understand the question." Every time we turn around, Apple AAPL lawyers can be found in a courtroom, battling over patents and other legal issues that will ultimately cost the firm billions of dollars. One of the more recent battles involves a class action suit regarding Siri's ad campaign, which supposedly conned some users into buying the device. But according to AppleInsider, the Mac maker filed court documents this month stating that the plaintiffs' claims are "insufficient." "Plaintiffs come nowhere close to satisfying the stringent pleading requirements of Rule 9(b) because they fail to allege any supposed misrepresentation with particularity and do not allege when they were exposed to the purportedly misleading advertisements, which ones they found material, how and why they were false, or which they relied upon in purchasing their iPhones," Apple wrote in its court document. "Plaintiffs' generalized descriptions of Apple's marketing campaign and Plaintiffs' alleged disappointment with Siri's functionality are insufficient under Rule 9(b) because they neither identify actionable misrepresentations nor connect any alleged performance issue with Siri to any particular misrepresentation." The Problem With False Advertising Claims Let's suppose that the plaintiffs were, in fact, misled by Siri's seductive ad campaign. At which point does it become a genuine legal matter? From what I've seen, precedent rarely matters in false advertising claims. If it did, there would be no question as to whether or not Apple was guilty. We would already know the answer because the courts would have settled the matter in previous cases. Instead, false advertising claims are often treated like a joke. Lawyers are partially to blame, as they are too quick to sue when a client whines about being "deceived" by an advertisement. If Joe Consumer believes everything he sees on TV, he is going to get screwed -- period. That doesn't mean he or anyone else should take legal action every time it happens. It simply means that Mr. Consumer needs to stop being so darn gullible. If nobody fights false advertising, however, you might expect the situation to worsen over time. It could, for certain. But by accepting every lawsuit that comes through the door, false advertising claims have lost their merit. In this case specifically, things don't look good for the plaintiffs. Never mind the insufficient claims against Apple -- what about the millions of iPhone 4S buyers who weren't misled? If Apple is guilty of anything, it would be that it built a product that is much less expansive than the hype led us to believe. Apple is also guilty of failing to properly promote the fact that Siri is a work-in-progress feature. Consumers who visit Apple.com know this; others may not. As of this writing, none of the Siri advertisements have stated that the feature is still in beta. That said, Siri can do everything we see in the TV ads. And that's all a judge or a jury will care about. Follow me @LouisBedigianBZ