South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc said on Monday that it was suing Hitachi Ltd, saying Japan’s top electronics conglomerate infringed its plasma display-related patents.

LG Electronics filed the suit with a US district court in Texas, seeking monetary compensation and an injunction prohibiting the violation of its seven patents on plasma display panel (PDP) development, LG said in a statement.

The action, which comes two months after Hitachi sued LG Electronics in the United States over PDP patents, also names Hitachi America and Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma Display Ltd, a Hitachi unit 14 percent owned by electronics maker Fujitsu Ltd.

A spokeswoman at LG Electronics declined to comment on how much the firm was seeking in compensation.

«Japanese firms are filing more and more lawsuits as competition in the global display market has increased dramatically. We will proactively deal with the situation based on our patented and patent-applied-for technologies,» LG Electronics said in a statement.

Hitachi was not immediately available for comment.

LG, the world’s second-biggest PDP maker after Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, is struggling to restructure its loss-making PDP business after losing out in a price war with makers of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels.

LG said in May it would halt the smallest of its three domestic plasma panel lines and was reviewing several strategic options, fanning speculation it might sell the plasma unit.

The Economic Times