Elan Microelectronics, a company specialized in producing chips, filed suit on Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, a company spokesperson said according to The New York Times. 

 

Elan Microelectronics said Apple’s infringed the touch screen patents by implementing the technology in its most successful products: MacBook, iPhone and iPod Touch. Elan said the law suit it’s about the technology used to recognize the position of a finger on a touch screen or trackpad. The multi-touch technology enables the user of the device to use more than one finger when performing different tasks. This technology is becoming more and more popular in the smartphone industry and not only there. 

 

“We couldn't find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action,” said Elan spokesman Dennis Liu for The New York Times. 

 

It is not known yet what damages is Elan seeking in the law suit. However, the Taiwan-based company will most likely seek to sign a licensing agreement and royalties from Apple. 

 

Elan Microelectronics previously won a similar law suit against Synaptics Inc (trackpads and multitouch panels producer), which sued back soon after and the two companies reached an agreement. The Elan spokesman said the law suit with Synaptics is “comparable” with the one with Apple. He did not unveiled details about the deal with Synaptics.  

 

Apple Inc representatives did not comment on this yet.