Sony Barred From Making Dual Shocks, has to pay $90M

[Acert93]

Is there a press clip stating MS invested in Immersion stock? Or this just conjecture based on the fact MS and Logitech paid Immersion money for a license?

Btw, if I was a PS2 developer I would be ticked if my game could not be sold in the US due to this. I also wonder how appeals will work in this case. Immersion could argue that an appeal that temporarily suspends this ruling will further damage their IP standing and cost them millions in revenue.

On the other hand this could be a huge loss for Sony. If they are not planning to launch until fall 2006, Nintendo and MS may go uncontested for 18 months in the US (or until Sony finds another controller options quick).

 

[Qroach]

Acert93,

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0728microsettl.html

There's a million links to be found on this subject. You could have tried a search engine, no? 8)

 

[Pozer]

wow. not even sure arrogant is the word anymore. Sony starting to remind me of Nintendo circa 1986.

http://theinquirer.net/?article=22149

A RULING by a judge that Sony infringed patents from Immersion has led to an order that it stop selling its games machines in the USA.

And, according to the Wall Street Journal, Sony will have to pay $90.7 million to Immersion.

But, the report said, Sony is to defy the ruling by the US court and will carry on selling games machines and won't pay the money.

The paper quotes a Sony exec as saying the firm doesn't agree with the order.

Last week Sony launched its PSP handheld in the States, but that machine isn't part of the lawsuit, said the Journal.

Immersion has already collected $26 million from Microsoft over a previous ruling. We wonder how the judge will react to Sony's defiance of a court order. Normally judges' sense of humour get a little strained when people or companies "don't agree"

 

[TEXAN]

Arrogant bastards.

 

[marconelly!]

But, the report said, Sony is to defy the ruling by the US court and will carry on selling games machines and won't pay the money.

The paper quotes a Sony exec as saying the firm doesn't agree with the order.

That only means they are going to appeal, and before the decision on the appeal is being finished processing in the court, they have the right to continue selling.

 

[Acert93]

Acert93,

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0728microsettl.html

There's a million links to be found on this subject. You could have tried a search engine, no? 8)

Thanks Q... what is a search engine?

I did not bother I guess.... searching on the net at times, especially if it is a board claim, just pulls up a lot of BB posts that are a mile long. Usually if it is legit the person mentioning it has a link. In this case MS did invest into Immersion and a link was ready. Thanks for the link!

 

[Qroach]

ok,np

 

[Teasy]

That only means they are going to appeal, and before the decision on the appeal is being finished processing in the court, they have the right to continue selling.

But wasn't this one already an apeal? Surely they can't just apeal over and over again..

 

[Sonic]

Sure they can Teasy. Don't you know how the American legal system works? There are a lot of ways to delay or appeal decisions from courts, one only needs to have enough money for the lawyers to do it.

Sony should just pay the company and then license the tech from it. It would be the best solution without spending money on more lawyers to overturn this decision.

 

[Acert93]

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), Sony’s gaming unit, said it would appeal the decision by a California federal court in the patent infringement case.

For the time being, Sony will keep selling PlayStations as the order — which covers the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, two game controllers and 47 software titles — will not go into effect before the appeal, an SCE spokeswoman said. Sony will be paying compulsory license fees to Immersion, she added.

The court’s decision confirmed a ruling by a California jury last year that ordered Sony to pay $82 million in the case. The amount was raised to slightly over $90 million due to interest.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7315614/

Basically even if they end up losing (2nd time now) it could be years before then. Keeping the PS2 on shelves and the games selling is obviously more important.

On the reverse side though, Immersion may refuse to license their technology to Sony. I know if I was in this situation and got a settlement that the corperation refused to compromise on, if I won in the end I would be happy to work with their competitors unless they offered a sweat deal. Until the appeal is heard Sony has to pay licensing fees to Immersion, but I wonder if this will be the case if Immersion wins in the end.

This does through some questions into the backwards compatibility issue. If Immersion wins Sony may not be able to use this in future HW, which may mean they lock out rumble all together on older titles (probably easier to not support rumble on backwards compatible games instead of just locking out this single feature).

The lesson to this story? If you are a huge company and are using the same technology as your competitors, and they licensed it, you may want to check the patents and make sure you are safe.

It will be interesting to see the final verdict... in 2011. By then we will be argueing about a 16CELL PS4 and this will be long forgotten

 

[V3]

Well, there is some hope that Sony will change this aspect for DS3. Its a bad technology, it needs to die.

 

[_phil_]

Arrogant bastards.

i'd rather say blatant patent abuse from immersion.

 

[zidane1strife]

But, the report said, Sony is to defy the ruling by the US court and will carry on selling games machines and won't pay the money.

That's what I'd have done, and I'd keep fighting(that judge has been $$$... compromised).

I mean WHAT SORT OF BS IS THAT? banning the games, the consoles? WTF? At most they could say no more DS and no more DS to be included with game machines/consoles. But this is pure and utter BS.

Had they done that sony just had to get a different rumble implementation controller and remove vibration from the current models in the fab while they did that. NO problem at all.

 

[Fodder]

A computer peripheral connected to a host computer for enabling a user to provide input to a graphical simulation running on said host computer and for providing vibration feedback to said user, said vibration feedback corresponding with displayed interactions within said graphical simulation[/b], said computer peripheral comprising:

One obvious point that comes to mind is the person writing this patent has a poor grasp of the English language, as they use the word 'said' instead of the word 'the'

Or perhaps you do. In the context of this passage, 'said' can be used as an adjective in place of 'the aforementioned' or similar. So, said passage is grammatically correct.