AppleInsider reported Tuesday that Apple has been hit with another lawsuit. This time, Contois Music and Technology claims that it demonstrated a "computer control system and user interface for media playing devices" in 1995 and 1996, during which time current and future Apple employees saw the software. Company owner Dave Contois said in his filing that those people used his software demos as their "inspiration" for iTunes, and he cited 19 such instances in the iTunes user interface.

The article goes on to note that Mr. Contois' main complaint centers on his patented user interface, which "allows someone to choose the tune from a variety of categories, such as artist, genre, title and so on."

AppleInsider said that Mr. Contois filed for a U.S. patent in February 1996 and was awarded it in January 1999 -- he told Apple it was infringing on his patent in September 2004 and "maintains the Mac maker knew about [his] patent back in January 2003."

As also noted in the article, Apple is already embroiled in five other iTunes-related lawsuits, including one with The Beatles' Apple Corp., another in which a Hong Kong firm says it owns parts of Apple's FairPlay, a third in which a Chicago company claims it patented the technology behind the iPod and one in France, where a consumer group says that Apple's FairPlay violates the European Union's competition law. A fifth suit similar to the French case has been filed in California.