Winning a lawsuit against Synaptics Inc seems to have given Taiwan manufacturer Elan the confidence to take on a much larger target, Apple. In what seems like a pretty ironic twist, a Taiwan based company is filing a major patent infringement lawsuit against Apple.

Apple has just recently declared that they are filing a patent infringement case against HTC –also a Taiwan based manufacturer. According to Apple, HTC has infringed on 20 patents for various hardware and software technologies. According to reports, the actual court proceedings for this case may not start until much later this year or even until the start of 2011.

Anyway, the Elan lawsuit covers a certain patent 352, which according to the description, covers multi touch technology –which is used by the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and the upcoming iPad. To be specific: “the 352 patent is a fundamental patent to the detection of multi-fingers that allows for any subsequent multi-finger applications to be implemented.”

While vague, this is the very same patent which Synaptics Inc had to settle for. Of course, Elan will be going for the big fish in their lawsuit against Apple:

“Apple is violating Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, by importing its iPhone, iPod Touch, MacBook and Magic Mouse products into the United States, that infringe Elan’s U.S. Patent No. 5,825,352. (the “352 patent”). Elan also alleges that the importation of Apple’s iPad products, which Apple has indicated will be available to consumers on April 3, violates section 337. Elan is requesting that the ITC issue a permanent exclusion order barring the importation of those products into the United States, as well as a cease and desist order barring Apple from selling any of these products in the United States that it has already imported.”

Should the C&D order push through, Apple will be forced into a settlement. While they can easily handle the court proceedings, having their products put on hold will certainly hurt their profits.

Find out more about the Elan versus Apple lawsuit at the DigiTimes.

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