After ongoing negotiations over an LCD patent license that started back in 2006, Sharp feels they are unable to come to a resolution with rival Samsung and yesterday filed a lawsuit against the company in a US district court. The lawsuit alleges that Samsung has infringed upon five of Sharps patents in LCD-related technology.

Sharp claims that Samsung is manufacturing and selling products in the US that infringe on LCD-related patents that Samsung owns including LCD TV’s and monitors that contain LCD modules made by Samsung and mobile phones that incorporate LCD screens made by Samsung. Sharp has many patents in the US and Japan related to LCD technology and licenses them out to different LCD panel manufacturers, which is likely what Sharp was trying to work out with Samsung.

In case you’d like to look up the relative patents in question at the USPTO, the five patent numbers involved in the lawsuit are: 4,649,383, 5,760,855, 6,052,162, 7,027,024 and 7,057,689.