Orinda Intellectual Properties USA is claiming that Sony violated their patents with their Blu-ray technology. The trespass? Not very clear, actually.

            The patent in question, patent 5438560, describes “an optical disk-shaped recording medium comprising a plurality of tracks” along with “an apparatus and a method for recording/reproducing optical information using the optical disk-shaped recording medium.”

            Orinda is seeking to put a halt to Blu-ray devices, including the PS3, and to obtain royalties.

             While not every lawsuit thrown at Sony is frivolous (see: the Immersion case), this suit doesn’t seem to hold much merit. With the patent sweeping broad enough strokes to paint a page black, it seems that CDs, DVDs, and HD-DVDs, among others, can also fall under the category of “offending technologies.”

            It certainly doesn’t help Orinda’s case that the only information that can be dug up on them is the original court filing on August 20, 2008, and various other news sites citing said court filing.

            This isn’t the first lawsuit over Blu-ray, either. Sony was the target of a lawsuit filed by Target Technology Co. LLC in May 2007, though that case was dismissed several months later.