Japan's Pioneer has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission against navigation supplier Garmin, alleging some of its products infringe on Pioneer patents related to navigation.

Pioneer already filed a complaint on October 9, 2009 against Garmin and its associated companies in the German District Court of Dusseldorf, alleging Garmin’s infringement of other Pioneer’s patents related to navigation technology.

In a press release Pioneer said “[we have] been negotiating in good faith [..] with Garmin for a license to Pioneer’s navigation patent portfolio. However, since the value of the portfolio has not been fairly evaluated by Garmin, Pioneer determined that litigation is necessary in order to protect its intellectual property in the navigation product field.”

These two litigations involve three U.S. patents (numbers 5,365,448; 5,424,951 and 6,122,592) and two European patents (numbers 0 775 892 and 0 508 681).