Apple Sued Over Multitouch Patent

Little-known tech companies sporadically rise from their anonymity to sue their more illustrious peers. Taiwanese company Elan Microelectronics is slowly becoming adept in this practice; it had earlier sued Synaptics in 2006. On Tuesday, Taiwanese chip designer Elan Microsystems filed a patent infringement suit against Apple in the U.S District Court in San Francisco.

According to the company, it was left with no other choice after two years of licensing talks didn’t bear any fruit. “We couldn’t find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action,” a spokesperson for the company told The NYT.

Elan has accused Apple of violating two off its patents related to touchscreen technology. It maintains that the MacBook and iPhone/iPod Touch violate its patent rights.