If there was any doubt that Nokia was serious about putting a stranglehold on Apple in court, then the third time could be the charm. The Finnish cell phone giant has just slapped Cupertino with yet another lawsuit claiming infringement on several “implementation patents” cited in a complaint with the ITC only last week.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that Nokia has ramped up their legal battles with Apple over patents, extending the war throughout Cupertino’s hardware line, according to AppleInsider. In addition to the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS named in the first suit, Nokia now claims patent infringement with the iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod classic, iMac, Mac Pro, Mac mini, Macbook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

The third lawsuit follows last week’s complaint filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission asking that imports of the supposedly infringing Apple product be banned.

The new lawsuit, filed in a Federal court in Delaware, includes patents for “VCO with Programmable Output Power” (2004); “Mobile Communication Device and Related Construction Method” (also 2004); “Optimized Camera Sensor Architecture for a Mobile Telephone” (2005); “Communications Device with Touch Sensitive Screen” (2003); “Mobile Station with Touch Input Having Automatic Symbol Magnification Function” (2000); “Utilizing the Contents of a Message” (2001) and “User Interface Device” (2005).

Nokia first sued Apple back in October over the use of their wireless standard patents, including GSM and wireless LAN widely in use by consumer electronics makers worldwide. Apple fired back in December with a countersuit alleging that Nokia infringed on 13 of their patents, as well as accusing the Finland-based company of trying to obtain more money from Apple than other competitors.

It’s no secret that Nokia has lost market share to competitors like Apple and Blackberry maker Research In Motion (RIM). Unable to fight competition from Apple on the sales front, Nokia has presumably tried to level the playing field with a protracted court battle, possibly in an effort to get a settlement from Cupertino to make up for their slide in handset sales.

In other Nokia news this week, executive vice president Rick Simonson was quoted in India’s The Economic Times as hoping Nokia will be “at par” with Apple and RIM in smartphone sales by the end of 2011. “Not only will we draw level with them,” he said, “we will also win the war because, in addition to e-mail, we will be adding content, chat, music, entertainment and several other features, which will soon become very critical for success of any company in this space.”