In what apparently is the latest development in terms of the ongoing legal scuffles between smartphone makers, Apple filed a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility in the US District Court, Southern District of California.

Apple has taken the legal route against Motorola – the two companies are already fighting a legal battle in Germany – in the US, accusing Motorola not for violating Apple’s own patented technology, but for breaching a contract pertaining to Motorola’s own IP, which Qualcomm uses in its MDM6610 baseband processors.

With the allegations leveled by Apple against Motorola chiefly linked to the use of Qualcomm processors in the iPhone 4S, Apple is requesting the court for a ban on Motorola’s legal proceedings against Apple in Germany, for using the mentioned processors in the iPhone.

The US filing by Apple makes a specific mention of the assurance which Qualcomm had given to the iPhone-maker about having “already paid Motorola for the licenses and covenants for Qualcomm and its customers, including Apple.”

Noting that the use of Qualcomm chips in iPhone 4S was essentially a matter linked to "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" (Frand) licensing, and that Motorola should be barred from dragging Apple in additional patent-infringement lawsuits, the iPhone-maker said in its filing: “An actual and justiciable controversy exists between Apple and Motorola with respect to whether Apple is authorized to use Qualcomm components.”