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Other co-defendants include Palm, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Samsung, Nokia and LG who all sport devices with touch-based interfaces.

The plaintiff in the case, Typhoon Touch Technologies has alleged these companies are infringing on touch screen technology patents it owns. The case was originally filed in December 2007 also against Dell and could, according to Typhoon, extend to "millions of devices" already on the market, a report in techworld.com says.

Typhoon claims for the past 12 years, it has held two patents, titled "Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computer System Employing Same," which the company claims that devices like smartphones, PDAs, and tablet PCs with touchscreen interfaces fall under their scope, and by definition, infringe in their patents.

The techworld report says that Typhoon has already reached out of court settlements with Motion Computing and Electovaya and adds that, "considering the growing trend toward touch-based computing interfaces, Typhoon's patent suits could have a significant impact on the adoption of the technology".