It appears to be open season on Apple as a target of lawsuits on the mainland.
The world's largest technology company now faces what is believed to be a third case filed against it in a mainland court, more than four weeks after the iPhone maker settled a dispute over its domestic iPad trademarks with a US$60 million payout to a Chinese firm.
The Zhenjiang People's Intermediate Court, in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, yesterday confirmed to the South China Morning Post that a Taiwanese plaintiff is suing Apple for allegedly violating his patent on technology that he claims is used on the California-based company's FaceTime video-calling software application and protocol.
'We accepted a lawsuit against Apple Inc on July 31 over an alleged infringement of intellectual property rights,' a court spokeswoman said. 'We have sent a notice to Apple Inc, but we are not sure if they have already received the notice.'
The plaintiff, who the Zhenjiang court would identify only as Lee, was reported by the Jiangsu news portal JSChina.com to have included in his lawsuit the Zhenjiang branch of sales firm Shanghai Communications Equipment and Apple Computer Trading (Shanghai).
Lee did not propose a specific amount as compensation.
He claims to hold a so-called utility model patent on 'voice network personal digital assistant' technology. He alleged to have discovered the patent violation after using the FaceTime function on an iPhone 4S that he recently purchased from an Apple dealer in Zhenjiang.