Apple could be facing an official patent probe into it's iPod player by the US International Trade  Commission after complaints made by Creative Technology, a Singapore based company which makes 'Nomad' and 'Zen' portable media players.

The dispute that begain in December 2005 is based on the fact that Apple has imported and sold iPod products in the US, which infringe a 'user interface' patent of Creative Technology used in it's series of players. Industry experts, however do feel that this move could be also due to the fact that Creative inspite being the one of the first firms to bring out a MP3 player hasn't been able to do much sales compared to the Apple iPod. The final ruling on this case is expected to take sometime; may be a few months.

[Via]