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Apple Corps is demanding damages totalling several million pounds after alleging that the computer firm's iTunes Music Store breaches a previous settlement between the two companies that restricted Apple Computer's activities in music. As part of that 1989 settlement, the California company paid out $26m (though some reports have put this as high as $50m) to the London-based Beatles operation, which oversees the musicians' lucrative legacy. Before that, in 1981, Apple Computer paid $80,000 for the rights to use the Apple name as long as it stayed out of the music business.

Although they prohibit Apple Computer from the distribution of music in traditional formats such as CDs, it is not clear whether the terms of the 1989 deal cover digital

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music distribution, since at the time that was an undreamt-of concept.

The latest case will be heard by Mr Justice Mann, who appears well equipped for the task since to the delight of Apple Computer's legal team he confessed to being an iPod owner.

Neither the surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, nor the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, are expected to appear in court. It is not known whether Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be called to give evidence, as he was not with Apple at the time of the 1989 agreement.

The latest dispute began in September 2003, when Apple Corps decided to sue its namesake 'over the use...of the word "Apple" and apple logos in conjunction with its new application for downloading pre-recorded music from the Internet'. At the time Jobs said that he expected the dispute to go on for years since the companies could not reach a new agreement, something he described as 'really stupid'.

Several months later, in April 2004, Apple Computer failed in a bid to have the case heard in a California court after Justice Mann rejected its argument that it should be held in the USA as this was where the two companies struck the original name-sharing agreement.