[img_assist|nid=24591|title=The iPhone 5 – one of many Apple products which Intertrust claims infringe its patents|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=145|height=150]Apple looks like it could be heading back to the courtroom after Intertrust Technologies Corporation revealed that it has filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against the firm in the US Federal Court in the Northern District of California.

Intertrust, which is jointly owned by Sony, Philips and Stephens Inc., invents, develops, and licenses software, technologies and intellectual property for Digital Rights Management (DRM) and trusted computing. The company holds over 250 patents, and has over 200 furtjer patent applications pending worldwide.

Its lawsuit accuses Apple of making products and services that infringe on 15 Intertrust patents around security and distributed trusted computing. The lawsuit covers a broad range of key Apple products and services, including iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad, Mac computers and laptops, Apple TV, and services including iTunes, iCloud, and the Apple App Store.

It’s clear from Intertrust’s filing that the company is pretty angry about Apple’s behaviour. One section reads:

Apple uses Intertrusts patented technologies at virtually every level of its consumer electronics enterprise including its operating systems, devices, applications, application trust infrastructure, and several of its profitable and strategically important services and capabilities ranging from its iTunes content services to capabilities supporting enterprise device and application deployment and management. Additionally, Apples use of Intertrust technologies is central to its trust management infrastructure for applications that enforce its vertically integrated business model, well known in the industry to provide significant commercial advantages. This trust management infrastructure allows Apple to provide security for applications that run on its devices and it also allows Apple to control and extract value from an entire ecosystem of software suppliers. No other entity uses Intertrust technologies so extensively at so many levels of its enterprise.

It continues:

Apples mobile devices, which include the iPhone, the iPod touch, and the iPad product lines, are built upon secure computing technologies developed and patented by Intertrust, including hardware-based security solutions and code-level security solutions that underpin Apples mobile device operating system, iOS. Apples infringement of Intertrusts patents has expanded with each new generation of iOS and each new generation of its mobile devices. For example, Apples most recent mobile device offerings, the iPhone 5, iPod touch 5, iPad 4, and iPad mini, incorporate technology from the Asserted Patents at every level of operation, including security technologies used in application development and execution.

And Intertrust certainly doesn’t feel Apple can claim ignorance as an excuse. The filing says:

In designing its iOS and OS X operating systems and devices, and its iTunes platform, Apple could have licensed Intertrusts technology. Instead, with knowledge of the Asserted Patents, as hereinafter alleged, and the publicity surrounding the license of the Asserted Patents to Microsoft that resulted from the Microsoft actions, Apple chose to infringe the Asserted Patents despite Intertrusts repeated attempts to license its patents to Apple.

It’s perhaps as a result of these repeated attempts that it has taken until now for Intertrust to launch legal action. Intertrust’s CEO, Talal Shamoon, said: “Apple makes many great products that use Intertrust’s inventions. Our patents are foundational to modern internet security and trusted computing, and result from years of internal research and development. We are proud of our record of peaceful and constructive licensing with industry leaders. We find it regrettable that we are forced to seek Court assistance to resolve this matter.”