The legal blows keep raining on Apple in the Chinese courts, as a state-owned film production company is reported to have filed a suit against the Cupertino firm, seeking just over a half a million dollars in damages.
Shanghai Animation Film Studio, the studio behind popular animated films such as The Monkey King, claims Apple has infringed its intellectual property rights by providing unauthorized download services in the App Store. The South China Morning Post reports (via Hollywood Reporter) that the suit was filed with the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, and that the court accepted the case.
The suit says Apple and its Chinese subsidiary, Apple Electronics Products Commerce (Beijing), infringed on more than 110 of Shanghai Animation’s titles, including Calabash Brothers and Black Cat Detective.
Shanghai Animation executives won’t say much about the case.
“We want to keep tight-lipped on this case because, as we see it, it’s just a litigation in which we want to get compensation [for our product],” one executive told South China Morning Post. “It’s a sensitive period now since Apple is a big multinational company and it is surrounded by controversies on its practices in China.”
This case comes on the heels of a report on Thursday that said China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce had recommended that authorities take action against Apple over its after-sales service.
Earlier this week, Apple appeared in a pre-trial session related to a lawsuit by another Chinese company alleging that Apple’s Siri digital assistant infringes on their patents that they have held since 2006.
