The Multitouch Tug of War

Well if you haven't heard about it by now, Elan Microelectronics has filed a lawsuit against Apple which says that the iPhone, iPod and so on violate a patent that Elan was awarded for multitouch more than 10 years ago.

The Elan patent seems pretty straightforward. Elan already succeeded in forcing Synaptics, the leading touchpad OEM, to the bargaining table for a cross licensing deal based on the same patent they are using to sue Apple.

Will Apple cave and do a cross licensing deal with Elan? What about Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, and every other vendor that wants to implement multitouch? Who owns multitouch? Is it Elan? Is it Apple? Is there too much prior art? These questions are probably going to be answered as major players fight over the intellectual property rights of the biggest HCI paradigm shift since the transition from command line to GUI.