Imagine your photo popping up on a phone screen every time you try calling a friend. It’s a cool feature – and the description of a Sony patent that has prompted the electronics giant to sue LG Electronics, Inc.

According to an Associated Press report, Sony has filed a patent infringement complaint against LG Electronics and its U.S. subsidiaries with the U.S. International Trade Commission. The allegation: LG’s smartphones infringe on Sony’s proprietary, patent-protected technology including its photo-based caller ID.

The report reveals that Sony also filed a lawsuit against LG in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Other allegations include LG infringing on patented technology for encoding and transmitting audio to suit bandwidth capacity, as well as its patents on transmission power technology.

Sony isn’t the only tech giant currently embroiled in a patent dispute. In October, TechZone360.com reported that Motorola launched a patent dispute, accusing Apple of infringing on patents pertaining to its wireless and mobile devices. On Oct. 6, Motorola filed its complaints with the International Trade Commission as well as in the Northern District of Illinois and the Southern District of Florida. Motorola Mobility, a Motorola subsidiary, also filed a complaint against Apple.

The legal dispute surrounds Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iTouch and other Mac computers, which Motorola alleges infringe on 18 of its patents in the areas of antenna design and related smartphone technologies.

In early October, a jury in Texas ordered Apple to pay a staggering $625.5 million for violating three patents owned by Mirror Words, a firm founded by David Gelernter, a Yale University computer science professor. Apple is challenging the verdict from a federal court in Tyler, Texas, saying the court has not yet looked at some of its counterclaims.

And in the same month, Microsoft launched a suit against Motorola for infringing on its patents related to “synchronizing e-mail, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power” with its Android-based smartphones.