A Chinese company, which is fighting a legal battle against Apple for allegedly unlawfully using "iPad" trademark in Chinese market, has now filed a lawsuit against the company in a US court.

A unit of Proview International Holdings has already field multiple suits against Apple in China aiming to impose a ban on sale of Apple's iPad tablet computer in the country. The Asian firm has now taken the legal battle back to Apple's home market, the US.

Proview Electronics Co Ltd and Proview Technology Co filed a lawsuit against Apple in Santa Clara County in California for allegedly deceiving the company at the time of purchase of the "iPad" trademark.

Proview says that Apple created a "special purpose" entity called the IP Application Development Ltd, or IPAD in order to acquire the trademark to hide Apple's role behind the purchase.

Proview said in its complaint that representatives of IPAD confirmed that they would not compete with the Chinese firm and did not disclose why they needed the trademark. Those representations were made "with the intent to defraud and induce the plaintiffs to enter into the agreement," Proview said in the filing dated February 17. The company is claiming unspecified amount of damages from Apple.

Apple has not commented on the matter and has only said that Proview is not agreeing to accept an agreement that was reached years ago.