A HAWAII-BASED company, GPNE, is suing Apple and several of its related companies at Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, alleging that Apple has infringed on its patent relating to a two-way paging system, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Thursday.

    Since GPNE filed the lawsuit at the court in 2013, several hearings have been held. During the latest hearing in late November, GPNE raised their claim for compensation to 800 million yuan (US$116 million).

    The company’s CEO, Edwin Wong, a Chinese-American who was born in Macao, said that he and his co-worker invented the two-way paging system and applied for a patent in 1995. The patent’s information on the website of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) showed that the patent was owned by GPNE, and its patent rights expired July 22, 2015.

    Wong said that the two-way paging system is widely used for wireless data communication between pager and phone users, and he owns patents for the system in several countries apart from China.

    GPNE sued Apple and several other companies based in Shanghai and Shenzhen, which have been selling or manufacturing smart phones for Apple, as it believed the iPhone and iPad produced by Apple infringes on its patent.

    The company demanded 100 million yuan in compensation from Apple when it first filed the case in 2013, and it raised the amount to 800 million yuan in November.

    GPNE has also sued Motorola, Blackberry and Nokia in the United States for patent infringements since 2008 and it withdrew the lawsuits after reaching settlements with these companies, according to the company’s attorney, surnamed Wang.

    Meanwhile, Nokia and Microsoft both applied to SIPO to invalidate GPNE’s patent rights in 2013 and 2014, but SIPO maintained the validity of GPNE’s patent rights.

    It’s not the first time that GPNE has accused Apple of infringing on its patents. The company lost a lawsuit in the United States. in 2014 trying to sue Apple for patent infringement.

    Wang said that the company chose to file a lawsuit in Shenzhen this time because the patent in question is Chinese, and the involved products — Apple’s iPhone and iPad — are made in China. (Zhang Yang)