A legal challenge has begun that threatens all manufacturers of CD authoring software, including Roxio and Apple. Optima Technology yesterday sued Roxio, claiming that Napster 2.0's parent company has infringed its patent for burning CDs. Optima wants the courts to issue an injunction against Roxio as well as unspecified damages, royalties and attorneys fees.

Optima also warns that many other companies are infringing its patent.

The story stretches back to 1995, when Optima developed software for burning images, music, video and data to CD. The technology was patented in 1997; that patent is known as a recordable CDROM accessing system, Reuters reports.

The company claims the industry standards from the Optical Storage Technology Association are also covered by its patent. It says any company using those standards is infringing its patent.