The BBC is reporting today that European Union Customs Officers have been ordered to seize imports of Sony’s Playstation 3 due to a patent dispute between Sony and LG.

The dispute centres around claims that Sony have infringed LG’s patents with it’s BluRay technology – the format of discs used to play PS3 games.

This is a big move from LG – by law they are obliged to pay for the cost and storage of the goods seized if a court rules that their patents aren’t valid – essentially an all or nothing move from LG.

The new dispute follows up from an earlier claim by Sony that LG infringement some of their patents in mobile phone technology and attempted to have LGs shipments seized.

Some companies have more money than sense!  I fully support patent and copyright laws – being a web publisher, content theft is all too common and I regularly enforce my right to take action against anyone using my content without permission.  But there comes a point of diminishnig returns where the exercise becomes fruitless.  In the case of Sony / LG I think they are hurting their customers more than helping themselves and should probably reassess how they are spending their resources.