The New York Times is reporting that Taiwan chip designer Elan Microelectronics has decided to sue Apple over the alleged infringement of two of their patents.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Elan Microelectronics claims that Apple's MacBook, iPhone, and iPod touch all use technology that infringes on their touch screen patents. They are asking the U.S. court to prohibit Apple from producing, using, and selling all three of the products.
The two companies have supposedly been in licensing talks for the last two years, but couldn't come to an agreement, so Elan Microelectronics decided to take action.
Apple isn't the first company that Elan Microelectronics has sued over patent infringement. They had previously won a preliminary court injunction against Synaptics over one of the two patents mentioned in the Apple lawsuit. Synaptics countersued and both actions were eventually dismissed because the two companies reached a cross-licensing agreement. It is possible that this may have led Elan Microelectronics to believe they had a chance to not only take on, but to prevail in their lawsuit against Apple.
As always, Apple hasn't commented about the lawsuit, but it will be interesting to see the end result. As you may know, Apple has a few touch screen related patents of their own.
