Apple is being sued for patent infringement by Taiwanese chip design house Elan Microelectronics over its use of touch screen controls.
The suit, filed in the US District Court in San Francisco, states that Apple’s MacBook computer, iPhone and iPod Touch all infringe the patents owned by Elan.
“We couldn’t find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action,” Dennis Liu, an Elan spokesman, told the New York Times.
He added that the company had been in talks with Apple for about two years over the issue but had decided to go to court after not reaching an agreement.
This is not the first time Elan has sued over the patents it holds on touch screen technology. In 2006 is sued US firm Synaptics over infringements of one of the patents I in the Apple suit and eventually settled on a cross licensing arrangement.
“From their previous victory in the case with Synaptics, I think they should be quite confident,” said Jessica Chang, a Credit Suisse analyst based in Taipei.
“Elan believes they have a unique edge with this patent, and they want to send a signal to the market” and set an example for others.”
Apple is dealing with a number of lawsuits over the iPhone in recent weeks.
Affinity Labs has filed a lawsuit in Texas over technology used in the downloading, browsing and sharing of content through iTunes and the App Store.
In the same state Accolade Systems is suing over the CMOS sensor used in the iPhone’s 2 megapixel camera.
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