EMG Technology on Monday announced it has filed a lawsuit against Apple in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The suit claims that Apple infringes an EMG patent in the way that the iPhone navigates the Internet. This is just one in a seeming barrage of recent lawsuits against the company.

EMG’s patent, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describes an “Apparatus and method of manipulating a region on a wireless device screen for viewing, zooming and scrolling internet content.” The patent was filed on March 13, 2006, and was granted on October 21, 2008.

The “‘196 patent,” as the suit describes it, sports 76 individual claims. One of the claims covers the display of Internet content reformatted from HTML to XML on mobile devices. EMG describes that as “the industry standard currently displayed by the iPhone.” Additional patnet claims include the technology for manipulating a region of the screen for zooming and editing, particularly via touch or movement.

“The ‘196 patent covers the simplified interface of reformatted mobile content to provide optimum viewing and navigation with single touches on a small screen,” said the law firm that filed the suit.

Apple has made no comment about the suit. I’d expect a fairly quick settlement of some kind.