LG Electronics Inc. said Wednesday that it has won an injunction from a Dutch court to temporarily ban Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. from shipping PlayStation game consoles to Europe.
“LG requested the import ban on products that infringed on our patents as part of our patent protection policy,” Yoon Won-il, LG’s spokesman at the company’s headquarters, said by phone.
The order from a civil court in Hague blocks Sony from shipping tens of thousands of PlayStation 3 game consoles for 10 days, according to media reports. LG claimed that Sony violated its Blu-ray technology, Yoon said.
LG Electronics’ Roboking robot vacuum cleaners play soccer in a tournament hosted by the company on Tuesday in Seoul. (LG Electronics)
Sony’s spokeswoman in Seoul declined to comment on the case.
The move could delay the supply of popular PlayStation game consoles for two to three weeks in Europe.
The two Asian electronics makers, which compete in markets for flat-screen TVs and mobile phones among other products, are engaged in a patent battle in the United States.
Last month, LG filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission in the U.S. that Sony’s Bravia TVs and PlayStation consoles violated its patent rights.
Sony also lodged a suit in a federal court in Los Angeles that LG infringed upon eight patents used in liquid-crystal TVs and computer monitors.
(Yonhap News)
