The story of lawsuits is neither new nor short for Apple. The fresh warning that Apple has received is from the US Justice Department, which has warned Apple, along with five major publishers, against raising the prices of e-Books. These U.S. publishers facing a potential lawsuit include CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster Inc.; Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group; Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group (USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; and HarperCollins Publishers Inc., a unit of News Corp.

Apple, along with these publishers, suddenly raised the price of e-books that were previously sold at a much lower price.  When Apple introduced its first iPad back in 2010, it kept the prices on digital books much lower, while publishers sold books to retailers for roughly half of the recommended cover price. The company is now following an agency model, under which publishers would set the price of the book and Apple would take a 30% cut. This clearly means that customers must pay more that what they were paying earlier, and the Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry.  They’re now prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws.

Still battling trademarks, too

Another controversy circling the iPad maker is its dispute with Proview. Shenzhen Proview Technology discretely filed a lawsuit against Apple with the Superior Court of the State of California in Santa Clara County on February 17th, accusing them of committing fraud when thay used a company set up by one of their law firms, IP Application Development Ltd., to purchase the iPad trademark from Proview on Dec. 23, 2009 for 35,000 British pounds ($55,000). Proview is seeking an unspecified amount in damages, and Apple is firm on their stance that they are the rightful owner of the iPad trademark.

Last but not the least, Apple saw failure in its request to ban sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet and the Galaxy Nexus smartphone in Germany. The Mannheim Regional Court in Germany also denied Apple’s request to ban the Samsung products from being sold in Germany.

It seems that this year is quite tough for Apple in terms of its reputation in the legal realm. Perhaps this is why Apple’s reportedly in talks with Android OEMs for licensing deals.