Dual Shocked: Sony Immersed in $90.7 million fine, injunction

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March 29th, 2005, 00:37
wraggster

Dual Shocked: Sony Immersed in $90.7 million fine, injunction

Three years ago, Northern California technology company Immersion Corporation brought a suit against Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft Corporation claiming patent infringement of its proprietary technology used in the controllers for the companies' home consoles: the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Xbox.

Microsoft settled out of court with Immersion in 2003, avoiding messy legal proceedings for $26 million, which also got Microsoft a 10 percent stake in Immersion.

Sony, on the other hand, left the decision up to the courts, a move that appears to have cost the company a serious chunk of change. Last Thursday, United States District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered the electronics giant to pay Immersion $90.7 million in patent infringement damages. The fine stems from the $82 million awarded to Immersion by a jury's decision on September 21, 2004, plus prejudgement interest of $8.7 million tacked on last week, which Sony unsuccessfully objected to.

The tiff involves Immersion's technology that creates the "rumble" feature that causes controllers to vibrate in sync with events in games. The court found in favor of Immersion's claims that Sony's Dual Shock controllers, the standard sticks for Sony's PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and several of its games infringe on two of its patents.

The Oakland, California, court also ordered an injunction stating that Sony is to immediately stop selling the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, both versions of the Dual Shock controllers, and 47 games found to use the vibration technology, including Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Gran Turismo 3. The injunction only effects sales in the United States.

Sony immediately appealed the decision and has been granted a stay of permanent injunction, allowing Sony to sell its products as normal during the appeals process. However, Sony will have to pay a licensing fee to Immersion for the duration of the stay.
March 29th, 2005, 01:17
curt_grymala

I heard about this on the radio on my way home. They also said that Immersion Tech sued Microsoft for the Xbox rumble technology, but MS settled for $26 million instead of fighting it out in court.

I wonder why they didn't throw Sega or Nintendo into the mix?

EDIT - I just noticed that the bit about MS is already in the story (second paragraph). Duh.
March 29th, 2005, 19:29
123soleil

Quote:

Originally Posted by wraggster

The Oakland, California, court also ordered an injunction stating that Sony is to immediately stop selling the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, both versions of the Dual Shock controllers, and 47 games found to use the vibration technology, including Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Gran Turismo 3.

I wonder why immersion got the court to stop sony from selling ps2s but will still let microsoft sell xboxs... Oh yeah, that's right, microsoft owns 10% of immersion!

Wait a minute... something sounds familiar here! That whole SCO vs. Linux thing... Microsoft has shares in SCO! Microsoft just can't stand being number 2 (or have any close competitors for that matter, they want the monopoly on everything).

When there not using questionable methods to kill its main competitors (including Explorer in windows to kill netscape, doing it again with media player to kill realplayer) they use questionable methods in court.

I'm no lawyer but these patent things are getting out of hand. When a new technology comes up there aren't any law suits (obviously because no one has made money out of it yet). But all of a sudden, when the technology becomes widely used (and the big players start making money) some small company says "hey wait, we have a patent on that technology but we forgot to sue the big companies who marketed the product years ago when it came out. We didn't have the guts to market it ourselves and thought it was less risky just to sue the big companies if that technology became successful"...

I just read that two small firms are suing all the flatscreen makers for patent infringement (http://news.com.com/Flat-screen+make...-5614342.html), and I do believe Apple had to settle similar cases with the Ipod recently.
Most of these patents are just saying "I have the Idea of a flat screan tv" or "I'm patenting the Idea of a small walkman that doesn't use any tapes or cds".