Reuters reports that Apple is the target of a new lawsuit filed by EMG Technology on behalf of the company’s founder, Elliot Gottfurcht.

 

A Los Angeles real estate developer, Gottfurcht claims that a technology the iPhone (News - Alert) uses to surf the Web infringes on a patent he and two co-workers filed.

 

The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas.

 

Los Angeles-based EMG Technology also has an office in Tyler, and has just one employee.

 

The suit declares that the technology the iPhone uses to navigate and display some Web sites created for small phone screens infringes on a patent acquired in October by Gottfurcht and his co-inventors and assigned to EMG.

 

Susan Lundgren, an Apple (News - Alert) spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit, stating that the company does not discuss pending litigation.

 

What is strange, however, is that EMG is not currently suing companies such as HTC Corporation, the maker of the G1 Google phone, and Research in Motion (News - Alert) (RIM), the BlackBerry creator, which also manufacture devices that can display mobile Web sites.

 

Mobile Web sites are reformatted versions of ordinary Web sites, with their content manipulated to be easily viewed on small screens.

 

"We haven't looked at anything other than the iPhone. That was the device that we looked at. Obviously it's very popular,” Gottfurcht's lawyer, Stanley Gibson, a partner with the Los Angeles law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, told Reuters (News - Alert).

 

According to a statement issued by his law firm, Gibson was one of several attorneys who prosecuted a recent patent infringement case against medical technology solutions provider, Medtronic. The lawsuit resulted in a $570 million verdict for Gibson’s clients.

 

Formerly Apple Computer, Apple is an American multinational corporation focusing on designing and manufacturing consumer electronics and software products. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of personal computers, the iPod line of portable media players, and the infamous iPhone.