A Taiwanese Company   Elan Microelectronics has sued Apple, alleging infringement of two of its touch screen patents.

The suit was filed on 7th April  in U.S. District Court in San Francisco,

“We couldn’t find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action,” Dennis Liu, an Elan spokesman, said  adding that the companies had been in licensing talks for about two years.

Apple is based in Cupertino, California.

The lawsuit alleges that Apple products — including its MacBook computer, iPhone and iPod Touch — use technology that infringes on two of Elan’s patents, Elan said.

It was not immediately clear what penalties or remedial action Elan was seeking in the suit.

In January, Apple reported fourth quarter earnings that were stronger than expected in part because of robust sales for the iPhone, MacBook and iPod.

Touch screen technology allows users to zoom in and out, flip images around and perform other tasks using two or more fingers pressed to the screen.

Touch screens are increasingly popular in a wide array of electronic devices and appliances. The market consulting company iSuppli last year forecast that the worldwide market for all touch screen modules would nearly double, from $3.4 billion in 2008 to $6.4 billion by 2013.

Elan said it won a preliminary court injunction against a U.S.-based rival, Synaptics, in a dispute over one of the patents mentioned in the Apple lawsuit, after a suit was filed in 2006 by a unit that was a subsidiary at the time. Synaptics countersued.

Both actions were dismissed last year after the two companies reached a cross-licensing agreement, according to a statement on Elan’s Web site.