SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Dolby International, a unit of the audio equipment maker Dolby Laboratories, has sued Research in Motion in the United States and Germany on Wednesday for patent infringement.

Dolby claims that RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablet devices use its patented digital audio compression technology without a license. The technology enables the playback of high-quality audio files using limited amounts of storage space.

Dolby, based in San Francisco, filed its lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and in the District Court of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.

The company is seeking financial damages and an injunction to halt the sale of RIM products.

Research in Motion, based in Waterloo, Ontario, had no comment.