Nokia Corp said on Wednesday it had filed multiple lawsuits against Apple Inc for violating 32 technology patents, hitting back at the iPhone maker's legal action targeting the one-time mobile industry leader a day earlier.

Nokia filed the lawsuits in courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich, Germany, and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The lawsuits cover patents for displays, user interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding.

"Since agreeing a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple's products," Nokia said in a statement.

Earlier on Tuesday, Apple had taken legal action against Acacia Research Corp and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc, accusing them of colluding with Nokia to extract and extort exorbitant revenues unfairly from Apple.

"We've always been willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights of patents covering technology in our products," said Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock. "Unfortunately, Nokia has refused to license their patents on a fair basis and is now using the tactics of a patent troll to attempt to extort money from Apple by applying a royalty rate to Apple's own inventions they had nothing to do with."

Acacia and Conversant did not immediately respond to requests for comment.