‘Tis a new year in the tech industry and what better way for it to start then a legal showdown between Sony and LG in the court system? Sony Electronics is filing a ITC patent infringement suit against Korean giant LG to block all future shipments of phones coming to the US while also seeking monetary damages in Civil Court. The suit targets LG phones including the Lotus Elite, Neon, Remarq, Rumor 2 and Xenon which Sony claims are infringements on their intellectual property. In particular, Sony is claiming that these devices transmit variable-bandwidth audio streams, live-preview camera snapshots and hands-off cellular calls, something that Sony believes it has the rights to.

 “Sony has been keen to protect its patents,” said Yuji Fujimori, a Tokyo-based analyst at Barclays Capital. “U.S. is an important market for Sony as its mobile phone venture with Ericsson is trying to win a bigger share.” 

The lawsuit is also said to target LG Blu-ray players as well though no current copy of the ITC complaint is currently available to list specifics.

[Via Bloomberg]