Three tobacco entities are now arrayed against Canberra as international cigarette manufacturer Imperial Tobacco officially lodged its legal challenge against Australia's new plain packaging policy set to be imposed on cigarette products sold in the country.

The government directive, which takes effect December next year, will force tobacco manufacturers to strip their products of their brand labels, on top of health warnings that inform smokers of the hazards of lighting a stick.

The plan has so far attracted constitutional challenge and arbitration request from the British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris, both of which protested that prohibiting their products from carrying their usual brand names would violate their intellectual property rights.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), Imperial Tobacco filed its complained Tuesday this week, with the Australian High Court office confirming the existence of the suit the day after.

"Imperial Tobacco has filed a challenge which has some similarities to the British American Tobacco (BAT) challenge," a High Court representative confirmed on Tuesday, the AFP report said.

The High Court spokeswoman has indicated that the meat of Imperial Tobacco's challenge against the Canberra initiative is the alleged infringement of its intellectual property, specifically of the Peter Stuyvesant brand.

The giant tobacco company informed the court that with the government plan in place, its tobacco products will be left in ruins, which would cost the global firm billons of dollars in losses.

In a statement, Imperial Tobacco Australia (ITA) Manager Melvin Ruigrok declared that "unchallenged, the Australian government would otherwise be able to simply take the intellectual property of legal entities."

Mr Ruigrok stressed too that the ITA is not challenging the Australian government's efforts to regulate the sale and use of cigarettes in the country as it was fully aware of the risks attached by health experts to the habit.

The federal government has claimed that covering health care expenditures alone linked with tobacco-related diseases costs the country more than $30 billion each year and depicting graphic health impacts of smoking on cigarette packs and dissolving their brand names are the best means available, the government said, to radically cut down smoking incidents.

However, the ITA argued on its statement that "the Australian government's plain packaging legislation is (lacking of well-crafted) tobacco regulation that is reasonable, proportionate and evidence-based."

"The High Court of Australia will now determine claims which include the validity of these unprecedented laws," Mr Ruigrok stressed.