More Lawsuits In The Land Of Electronics: Sony Sues LG Over Patent Spat

In the electronics industry, it often seems like everyone is pretty much suing everyone over something, somewhere.

This morning, I caught that Sony Corporation has apparently filed suit against LG Electronics (right before CES, no less).

LG Electronics is the division of the LG conglomerate that markets and distributes the group’s home entertainment devices (TVs, Blu-ray disc players, DVD recorders and whatnot) as well as its mobile phones and home appliances, among other products.

For the record, LG is the world’s third largest handset maker after leader Nokia and Samsung, with an aspiration to become number two by 2012.

I haven’t yet been able to pin down what the lawsuit is about, but from what I can gather, Sony is targeting two LG subsidiaries based in the United States, namely LG Electronics Mobilecomm U.S.A. Inc. and LG Electronics U.S.A. Inc.

For your background: LG Electronics Mobilecomm USA does business as LG Mobile Phones and is the U.S. division that markets the company’s mobile phones, portable wireless-enabled PCs, and related accessories. The company also provides sales and marketing support in North America for parent organization LG Electronics.

From what I can tell at the time of writing, it doesn’t concern a patent infringement suit (see update below), as is usually the case when electronics companies turn to the courts, but I haven’t been able to retrieve what it is about.

The lawsuit was filed on December 28, 2010 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. We’ll update as soon as we get more information.

Update: Benzinga and Bloomberg are reporting that Sony is attempting to block LG’s mobile phones from entering the United States, on the basis that phones such as LG’s the Lotus Elite, Neon, Remarq, Rumor 2 and Xenon use Sony technology.

Sony is also seeking LG to stop selling its Blu-Ray DVD player for the same reason.