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Immersion Sues Sony and Microsoft Over Force Feedback
stereoroid writes: "Immersion Corp. has filed a lawsuit against Sony and Microsoft, alleging unauthorised use of their patents - here's their press release. The suit alleges that any use of touch or force feedback in their consoles violates their patents. For some obscure reason, this was first reported in the Irish Times today."
what about all the coin-ops that had force feedback in the 80's
I didn't see the exact patent numbers that were supposedly infringed on. Looking at Immersion's patents, it seems they are for real force feedback. Like making a controller harder to push when you are up against a wall. Not the nerve killing vibrations of the current console controllers. Microsoft did make a true force feedback joystick for the PC though.
Well it isn't a software patent, and the suit is against two big corps we love to hate. But if they are claiming a patent on a vibrating controller, I think there may be prior art.
Oh, one more thing. What happens with companines like Logitech (who also made a true force feedback joystick) that licensed the technology, if the patent is declared invalid. Can they sue for the license fees that they paid?
If you had read the article you would have seen that Logitech was one of the companies that actually licensed the technology.
Apparently Immersion tried to settle with Sony and microsoft in a civilized way and have them as licensees (see their press report!). This is a common way of doing FAIR business legally, and which can take years of legal correspondence.
Since apparently Sony and Microsoft are still refusing fair negotiations, no other choice of course can be done by immersion.
Immersion IMHO has been doing a good and fair job here. Now they face all the trouble of lengthy and expensive suits, especially because they are against the 2 toughest players around.
My favorite from a quick glance over their patents is number 80 on their list.
"Implementing Force Feedback Over the World Wide Web and Other Computer Networks ". Taking a fairly common feature, and saying it can work over a network. Any network. A quick skim through the patent listing didn't have any reference to a specific unique protocol or anything that they designed.
Are they talking about realtime streaming of force feedback data? Are they talking about embedding that stuff in webpages? If I have my computer shake my mouse a little bit every time an FTP connection fails, can they sue me? It makes no sense.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I got myself one of those Logitech Mouseman iFeel immersion-technology mouses. It's ridiculous. It even plays music. Yes, the mouse plays music, resembling the floppy drive music back in 80's, you can play tunes on it by adjusting the vibration, en the default drivers does just that.
It feels like you're holding a shaver, not like you could feel the icons on your desktop or anything like that.
Let them sue sony and microsoft, in the end can't they (IMMERSION) be held liable for hand injuries? Hand injury due to vibrating controllers
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
As early as the 1950's military aircraft were using force feedback so the pilots could "feel" the plane. Fly by wire was just not intuitive without the feedback part. The first plane that I know used this was the Avro Arrow.
An exploration of mixology, spirits and bartending.
I suspect that Lockheed probably has prior art, however. Force feedback is fairly standard in fly by wire military aircraft.
Best Slashdot Co
"For some obscure reason, this was first reported in the Irish Times today.""
Why, oh why, doesn't Slashdot post my submitions? Europe has been buzzing with this and other patent cases involving Microsoft. Microsoft recently failed to pay the measly $600,000 to the poor french couple who sold everything they have to fight for thier rights against Microsoft. They won! But Slahsdot doesn't report these things when I, a long time and loyal reader, submit.
It's the Softimage case morons.
Actually, IP lawyers DO come in the ambulance chaser form factor. There are whole firms that do nothing but comb through patent records looking for something that might possibly apply to some big company. They then go licence the right to sue on behalf of the patent holder, or buy the patent out-right. It's really a slimy business.
http://kered.org
There are several possible reasons. First and foremost it is not incumbent upon a patent holder to defend it against everyone or even defend it immediately against infringement, it may not be worth their while, for example you breach their patent but they won't care unless you start making enough money to make it worth their while hiring lawyers. One other possible explanation is that they may have already been in discussions with Microsoft and Sony for many months over this, but ultimately couldn't agree on a settlement, filing suit is a clear escalation perhaps because of a breakdown in negotiations. Finally, inside companies not everyone is hawkish about suing people over patent infringements, there is a risk that you'll lose the patent and lawyers can be expensive, and some people are just gun shy or have moral reservations, so when there is an opportunity to sue, it doesn't always happen even when there is an apparently strong case and clear violation, this can delay the decision to sue through internal conflict within senior management.
You have a link for that French story? Sounds interesting...
Apparently they pick submissions pretty much at random. And despite their complaining that they have to sift through hundreds of stories a day, they seem to reject mine a few minutes after I submit them.
Once something is invented it's pretty much always simple ref zippers and velcro...
...
The problem is that vast amount of stuff IS INVENTED, but people just don't give a flying f*ck (or don't know) about patenting it.
A friend of mine modified (some 15 years ago) bloody pinball machine to 'shake' every time bumper was hit. Does it fit into 'force feedback' patent? If he spent some more time with lawyers (and if he lived in the US) he might have patented it and who knows what kind of 'aparatus' that would be today (interpretation, interpretation).
Similar is the story with 1-click ordering. There were many people who either did it before Amazon or were playing with it, but MANY people (me included) dumped such idea because of a very simple reason - you don't want to store credit card numbers on your server (if you care about security - yours and customer's). It took someone big (Amazon) to do it and ignore security aspects - and they got a patent (at the same time their PR machine managed to convince many people that "it is secure" - bollocks).
I call it "brute force"
In the present companies want to make money, patents are one means of making money and at the same time hindering the competition.
Companies would still invest the time and money to invent things if patents were removed. It is a fallacy that world needs patents. Companies with stock holders need patents.
I'm not a radical lefty, I agree a lot with Ayn Rand and economist Ludwig von Mises, I do not agree with the current slanted view that most politicians, business crooks and recent college grads seem to have on what capatilism should be.
May I be so bold as to suggest you read http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~shadab/ There you might find that there is a theory that capitalism is supposed to benefit the individual not the corporation. To achieve this there must be no regulation of business, Laissez-faire
What patents do is provide a monoploy, a goverment sanctioned one at that. How can this be in the best interests of anyone but the company holding the patent?
If only we could persuade students to follow a math/science/engineering route instead.
The easiest way to do that would be to make the job less lucrative - the reason people want to be lawyers is because there are so damned many rich ones.
What we should do is change the laws to (a) put a cap on the amount lawyers can take on contingency, and (b) make the losing side pay the winning side's expenses. I work for a company that provides essentially "lawyer insurance" - we tell our customers that if someone brings a suit against them, even a stupid or trivial suit that they're sure to win, they can spend tens of thousands of dollars to get that "win".
Of course this will never happen, because so many of the lawmakers are (gulp) - lawyers!
I do like the term "lawyer entropy". Describes the situation to a T.
I believe Ed Link's original 'BlueBox' flight simulator had force-feedback controls back in 1929. Certainly the flight simulators of the 1960's had them - and that pre-dates Immersion's patents.
:-)
http://www.link.com/history.html
Aaarrgghhh - it's so hard to choose...Hate Microsoft...Hate Patents...Hate Microsoft...I need a Cowboy Neal option here!