Picsel Technologies, based in Glasgow, has filed a suit in Delaware against Apple over what it alleges is the Mac company’s illegal use of its own patented technology in Apple’s hot sellers, the iPhone and iTouch.

The function in question relates to the iPhone and iTouch capacity for users to scan and pan screen content quickly.

Nixon Peabody, Picsel’s  legal representives in America, are quoted as saying: ‘Picsel claims that Apple has implemented a key component from Picsel’s mobile rendering functionality, which enables users to scan through all kinds of on-screen content without experiencing prolonged screen update cycles. Without Picsel’s technology, users can be subjected to prolonged delays while ‘zooming’ and ‘panning’ documents, web pages and images. This core rendering feature is a key contributor to the unique visual experience delivered by Picsel’.

Picsel is looking for compensation for the units already sold (and how many is that in two hugely successful products?), unspecified damages and patent damages.