Immersion's patent infringement case creeps up yet again...The federal district court in California has ordered Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) to pony up $90 million US to San Jose-based technology developer Immersion for patent infringement.?You may recall that Immersion filed the suit a little back in 2002?against both Sony and Microsoft over a specific kind of force feedback technology utilized in their console game controllers, which makes the controllers vibrate in response to gameplay.?Immersion claims they patented this type of "haptic" force-feedback game controller first and their technology was subsequently implemented without license by both Sony and Microsoft.
Microsoft ended up settling to pay a far smaller amount of cash ($26 million US) to license Immersion's technology outside of court in 2003.?Interestingly, Microsoft acquired a certain percentage of Immersion afterwards.?A jury ruling also ordered SCE to cough up the dough last year, but their share was much larger at $82 million US, a number which grew yesterday.?SCE since then licensed the technology from Immersion like Microsoft did.?However, today's court judgement also forces SCE to suspend sales of their home video game consoles in North America.?Fortunately the order does not hold for the time being, as SCE has (obviously) filed their appeal.
"SCE said it will continue U.S. sales as the suspension order--which covers PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles, two game controllers and 47 software titles--will not go into effect before the appeal and because Sony will be paying compulsory license fees to Immersion, an SCE spokeswoman said."
Naturally, SCE disagrees with the California court's ruling and will appeal the decision to a higher court, at a later date.?Considering just how popular the PlayStation brand name and image has become, you can bet the company won't let the suspension order slide.
Article Link: CNET News.com
Immersion Obtains $Million Judgment in Patent Infringement Case Against Sony (2005-03-30)