Taiwanese firm plans to sue Apple

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/business/6233239.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Luxpro, a Taiwanese electronics firm, has said it will sue computer maker Apple for $100m (£52m) in damages.

The move follows a legal battle Luxpro fought with Apple over some of the Taiwanese firm's digital music players.

Apple accused Luxpro of copying its iPod Shuffle, and won an injunction in Taiwan to halt production.

This ruling was later overturned after Luxpro appealed to the Taiwanese High Court and Supreme Court, clearing the way for it to sue for lost revenues.

'Significantly dissimilar'

Apple's iPod digital music players, which include the Shuffle model, are the world's best-selling, and have been a main driver of the company's earnings over the past few years.

Rival producers have been trying to win themselves a chunk of this valuable market.

Luxpro's MP3 player was a similar size to Apple's Shuffle, and was also made of white plastic.

However, the courts in Taiwan found that "the appearances of the two products are significantly dissimilar".

According the Financial Times, Luxpro's chairman Wu Fu-chin said the company wanted to recoup lost revenues caused by the initial court injunction.

He added that the company had recently started reselling its Super Tangent digital players "in Latin America and eastern Europe".