A new front has been opened in the patent law wars involving Apple, as it's been sued by Taipei-based semiconductor maker Via Technologies, over allegedly infringing three US patents.

Whilst Via seeks a jury trial to prohibit sales of Apple products in the US, Apple itself is now looking at patent cases from all sides. It hasn't commented on the Via suit as yet.

Infringe this

"The products at issue generally concern microprocessors included in a variety of electronic products such as certain smartphones, tablet computers, portable media players and other computing devices," Via said in the complaint.

Apple has had success in many current legal cases. It successfully saw the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in Germany and it won the battle for UK advertising rights to the 'thinnest smartphone'.

There's still no sign of light at the end of the legal-tunnel, however, with this new Via law suit and Samsung moving to block iPhone sales in its native Korea.

Apple can take some solace though, having come up trumps in Gartner's predictions for the rest of 2011, maintaining firm grip on the growing global media tablet market.

[source: Bloomberg]