Timber, here's a big case for you!

[Kakero]

Can Sony still sell PS2 to the rest of the world apart from US ?

[Sir Goulum]

I think so. At least that's what the link says.

[Bungleau]

Remember there are two sides to every story. Not all big companies are forthcoming about using other people's ideas and paying them for it. You can't look at the damages in terms of last year's revenues, but rather what the revenues *would have been* had Sony properly licensed the technology.

That being said, I don't know who's right in this case, because I haven't read the details of it (and I'm talking about more than you'll read in the media). Is the little company the problem, or is it someone at Sony who was trying to cheat the little company? Therein lies the problem.

Note that there are people who file apparently frivolous patents to try to take advantage of what seems like basic technology. But not all patents are on frivolous stuff... a lot of it is legit. And if I were in Sony's shoes, I'd hope that most people thought this was frivolous, no matter what the truth is.

[Jorath Calar]

Strange, these sensory joysticks from Microsoft, Sidewinder and such, have been around since 1997 or so, how come the company is making these claims now, almost 8 years later?

Something fishy here...

[Hivetyrant]

here is another link.

Sony was ordered by a U.S. federal court to immediately stop U.S. sales of its PlayStation game consoles and pay USD 90.7 million to Immersion for patent infringement over controllers used with PlayStation game consoles. The federal court's order states that Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Entertainment America Inc. have to stop selling the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 game consoles using Dualshock controllers as well as more than 40 game software products, although the judge immediately put her ruling on hold. The stay in the case means Sony will keep moving its Playstation consoles in the United States, until the, lengthy, appeal process is completed. Immersion initially started the lawsuit against both Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has acquired a license, but the U.S. console manufacturer settled out of court for a USD 26 million payment (the cost of the acquisition of a license) and other settlements which, in fact, brought part ownership of Immersion to MS. Financial analysts said there was little practical impact to the order. The same experts claim that the worst that could happen for the Japanese giant is that it will lose the appeals and be forced into a license agreement with Immersion. The meat of the case has to do with patents held by Immersion Corp. on vibration technology. The PS2's Dualshock controllers vibrate during gameplay. The protection offered by the U.S. patenting system helped Immersion win this round although arguments regarding the use of the technology will continue for a long while. Since the patent describes the use of ...spinning eccentric weights to create vibration, some arguments against Immersion suggest that the California-based company has patented a law of nature. The, similar, idea that a centrifuge with an offset weight can be used to apply force to an object has been in use for decades in many fields of science, although in such cases the designers have to compensate by adding weight to the opposite site of the boom that carries the payload to avoid such rumbling forces. Immersion shares were up nearly 15 per cent following the ruling, though Sony shares remained unchanged. A Sony spokeswoman in the U.S. said the appeal was in progress but declined to say when it would be filed. However, a Sony spokeswoman in Tokyo said the company would be paying compulsory license fees to Immersion while the appeal progressed through the courts. Games are an important part of Sony's overall income accounting for 44 per cent of Sony's operating profit from October to December, as its electronics division continues to struggle.

[Timber Loftis]

Timber, here's a big case for you!

Yeah, you may note I noticed it.
If you think the amount of damages unfair, then try to consider that issues at play may have included: (1) Sony's relative profits from the device (which of course may be A LOT more than Immersion makes a year) and (2) excessive damage multipliers which may be provided by patent law for punitive purposes.

[ 03-30-2005, 01:36 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[General Nosaj]

It seems everyone thinks this is pretty crazy and crap that someone would have sued Sony but if you were in that minnows shows what a score! Although it is rediculous.

[Iron Greasel]

I'm shocked that in America anyone with money can patent anything. Does anyone own gravity yet?

[Seraph]

Originally posted by LennonCook: And note, that it can be looked at as a software patent: quote: sensory technology [...] allows a controller to vibrate in time with the game's actions.

It seems to be a technology in the console's OS (which, ok, sure may be embedded and be firmware, but that's still software).
So, a software patent, those things that alot of open source people (including myself) are against because they can be extremely broad and ruin emerging companies, have just been used to syphon alot of money from a well-known and well-established company. [/QUOTE]Well, patents 6,275,213 and 6,424,333 sure look like device patents to me. They have basically patented taking a motor with a weight attached to it and hooking it into a signal processor . About the only part of the patent that I see that could possibly be software is the signal processor.

I'm also a little curious what your idea of a "well-established company" is. Immersion has been devolping technologies like this for over 15 years.

I'm shocked that in America anyone with money can patent anything. Does anyone own gravity yet?

Why do you assume it is just America? A few years ago an Australian lawyer patented a "circular transportation facilitation device", a device sometimes refered to as "the wheel".

[ 03-30-2005, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: Seraph ]

[johnny]

Originally posted by Iron Greasel: I'm shocked that in America anyone with money can patent anything. Does anyone own gravity yet?

Yep, that would be Oprah.