Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Vs Alcatel-Lucent, LG patent trial starts

Alcatel-Lucent has taken Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) and LG Electronics to court alleging that the companies have infringed on its patents involving video compression technology used in a variety of devices.

The trial began on Tuesday at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

According to Bloomberg the case is directly related to a 2010 complaint filed by the Paris-based technology company's Multimedia Patent Trust in which both Apple and LG were accused of copying efficient data transmission tech pertaining to videos.

“Apple and LG have chosen not to license these patents while 33 other companies have paid over $190 million for these licenses,” said one of the patent trust's attorneys, Frederick Lorig.

Counsel went on to explain that he failed to successfully negotiate a deal with Apple despite having already set licensing terms with Motorola worth some $18 million. "Apple sells four times the number of infringing products that Motorola does,” he said.

The suit has a long list of the devices that infringe on the patents. According to the papers filed in the court Apple devices include iPhone, iPad, iPod and MacBook lines and LG's products include Chocolate Touch VX8575, Bliss UX700, Touch AX8575, Lotus Elite LX610, Mystique UN610 and Samba LG8575.

Lorig explained that motion pictures seen by users on their mobile screens were made possible by the patents. “This technology lets you download in half the time and store twice as much content.”

Apple and LG attorneys opened their arguments by saying that the they had already been paid for the technology which was made on the basis of `pay-as-you-go'.

“LG and Apple are not going to pay rent for technology they do not use,” said Apple attorney Juanita Brooks. “Why are we here in this trial? They are trying to get $170 million from Apple. I can think of 170 million reasons they are asking us to pay more than all of the other licensees combined.”