Sony Sued By University Over PS2 Chip

Mike Hawk writes "Cry me a river! Sony is being sued over the creation of its 'Emotion Engine' PlayStation 2 chip. The University of Wisconsin (Madison) has filed the suit claiming the "EE Core" violates a 16 year old U-Dub patent. And you guys have been gaming with 16 year old technology the whole time - those PS2 jaggies make perfect sense now..." Since this story broke on Friday, a CNET News article has added a little more information, quoting a University spokesman as saying the patent involves "advanced chipmaking technologies and has been licensed by a number of technology companies", but not Sony or the chip's co-creator, Toshiba.

Comments

Nice Timing for a lawsuit

[mrshowtime]

Gee, right after Sony sells it's 60 millionth PS2, this University finally figures out that Sony "Stole" their (ancient) technology. Sounds awfully fishy to me.

Re:Nice Timing for a lawsuit

[NanoGator]

"Gee, right after Sony sells it's 60 millionth PS2, this University finally figures out that Sony "Stole" their (ancient) technology. Sounds awfully fishy to me."

Coincidently, Sony recently changed their manufacturing process to make the systems cheaper. I couldn't tell you if that's what sparked the suit or not, but I can tell you that anything smells fishy when you are missing a good deal of detail like we are right now with this story. It's too vague.

Perceived Legitimate Concern

[Locky]

This isn't like a soccer mom trying to cash in on frivuolous lawsuit #235 of the week, this is an actual university, and the entire board of directors must have legitimate concern to sue.

Perhaps they have a case.

Re:Perceived Legitimate Concern

[Random832]

This isn't like a soccer mom trying to cash in on frivuolous lawsuit #235 of the week, this is an actual university, and the entire board of directors must have legitimate concern to sue.

Translation:
This is the entire board of directors of an actual university trying to cash in on frivuolous [sic] lawsuit #235 of the week.

Question

[Hard_Code]

Uh, why are universities patenting their research? Aren't they supposed to be releasing info for public use?

That is partially a rhetorical question, and my partial answer is that federal cuts have probably reduced grants/funds to the point that universities must (and indeed they have long since started to) patent and sell their research, sometimes with tacit partnership with industry with specific products in mind, as opposed to being "pure" research.

I'm not against the public, businesses included, profiting from university research, I'm just sort of skeptical of universities getting patents (anathema to the whole purpose of universities), and then licensing them to a select few that pay enough. Otherwise our universities just become off-site research labs for specific companies (i.e. the ones with the money).