TAIPEI - Taiwan's Acer Inc. blamed three of its PC contract manufacturing partners for a patent infringement lawsuit filed in the U.S. by Hewlett-Packard Co.

Acer, the world's third-largest computer vendor, has filed a lawsuit against its Taiwan ODM partners: Quanta Computer Inc., Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., and Wistron Corp. As an ODM partner of Acer, the firms are not allowed to make products for HP using Acer's patents and vice versa, a spokesperson for Acer said.

Quanta said it would cooperate accordingly with Acer on the case. Hon Hai and Wistron could not be immediately reached for comment.

HP filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Acer in a Texas federal court in March, which seeks to stop the Taiwan firm from selling notebook computers and media center-related products in the U.S. Five patents were listed in the lawsuit, issued between 1997 and 2003.