Taiwan's HTC Corp. has accused Apple of patent infringement in the latest salvo in an ongoing legal battle between the smartphone giants.

HTC, in the lawsuit filed on Monday in US District Court in the state of Delaware, accused Apple of violating three HTC-held patents in its Macintosh computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads and other products.

HTC asked the court for damages and to bar Apple from importing into the United States any devices found to be infringing the patents, according to a copy of the lawsuit posted by technology blog TechCrunch.

Patent lawsuits are a regular occurrence among technology giants and Apple has accused HTC and other smartphone makers using Google's Android mobile operating system of infringing on Apple-held patents.

Google announced on Monday it was buying US smartphone manufacturer Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in cash, giving the Internet giant a strong patent portfolio to defend Android against its rivals.

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies," Google chief executive Larry Page said.

Motorola Mobility chief executive Sanjay Jha told financial analysts the US maker of smartphones and touchscreen tablet computers has over 17,000 issued patents and another 7,500 pending.

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