In the suit, filed by a company named Picsel Technologies in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, the company claims that the rendering process Apple uses on the iPhone violates Piscel's patents. Specifically, Picsel said its technology accelerates the process of updating the display on a device.

In the lawsuit Picsel says users would experience long screen update delays if it weren’t for the use of the patented technology. Zooming and panning documents, web sites, and images would not work on the iPhone as fluidly, according to the lawsuit. Picsel is asking the court to order Apple to compensate Piscel for devices already sold with treble damages.

Established in 1998, the company now employs over 250 staff at its headquarters in Glasgow, Scotland and in offices throughout Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia and the US. The company says its technology is found on 250 million devices worldwide, with a customer list that includes KDDI, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Sharp.

Picsel's portfolio offers solutions that cover aspects of mobile content delivery, "all of which are based on core technology which enables users to interact with every type of content, in all its original richness, on any kind of device," the company says. These include: Picsel UX- Digital Content Suite, UI Platform and Desktop Widgets, Picsel Browser, Picsel Attachment Solution, Picsel File Viewer, Picsel Comic Viewer, Picsel Mobile Content Solution, Picsel Photo Lab, and Picsel Content UI.

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