Lenovo and IBM Corporation have announced the voluntary recall of some 526,000 lithium-ion batteries used in ThinkPad notebook computers worldwide due to the latest problem with batteries made by Sony Corp., the Washington- based Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said Thursday.

IBM Corp., based in Armonk, New York, and Lenovo (United States) Inc. of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, recalled the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in ThinkPad computers because they may cause overheating, posing a fire hazard to consumers. About 168,500 of the batteries were sold in the U.S., while the rest were distributed worldwide, according to the CPSC statement.

The CPSC warned that consumers should stop using recalled products immediately and contact Lenovo to receive a replacement battery, free-of-charge. Till now , Lenovo has received one confirmed report of a battery overheating and causing a fire that damaged the notebook computer. The incident, which occurred within an airport terminal as the user was boarding an airplane, caused enough smoking and sparking that a fire extinguisher was used to put it out. There was minor property damage and no injuries were reported.

According to the CPSC, the recalled batteries were sold with, or sold separately to be used with, the following ThinkPad notebook computers between February 2005 and September 2006: T Series (T43, T43p, T60); R Series (R51e, R52, R60, R60e); and X Series (X60, X60s). They were distributed by IBM until Lenovo, the Chinese computer maker, bought IBM's personal computer division in May 2005. 

It was the fourth recall in recent months involving Sony batteries believed to be defective. In August, Dell asked customers to return 4.1 million faulty laptop batteries and Apple recalled 1.8 million batteries worldwide, warning they could catch fire. Last week, Toshiba said it was recalling 340,000 laptop batteries due to a problem that caused the laptops to sometimes run out of power.

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