Lagos Analysis Corporation (Lancor), the firm that brought a patent infringement suit against the OLPC project, has now approached the Nigerian court, claiming $20 million in damages.

An excerpt from Groklaw:

I kid you not. $20 million in “damages.” And an injunction blocking OLPC from distribution in Nigeria. They have the latter at the moment from an interim injunction, as they call it there, from an ex parte motion LANCOR filed, meaning OLPC wasn’t there, didn’t get a chance to tell its story in court, and based entirely on an attorney affidavit and some papers filed. The interim can last many, many months, and I think that may be the plan. OLPC, as I understand it, hasn’t even been served yet.

While the man at the helm of Lancor has been convicted for bank fraud, it’s uncertain whether the case will be resolved in favor of OLPC. The patent that’s claimed to be infringed involves the Multilingual Keyboard.

Accompanying this is news of the exit of OLPC’s CTO, Mary Lou Jepsen.

The injunction places a hold on the sale of OLPC laptops in Nigeria. Gizmodo also refers to an ‘Intel’ angle to the case.

More information:

Nigerian firm demands $20m from OLPC (Register)

Nigerian firm demands $20 million from One Laptop Per Child (News.com)