Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Sony Sued By University Over PS2 Chip

Posted by simoniker on from the full-recall-expected-soon dept.

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.

2 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. U-Dub by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    "U-Dub" is University of Washington. University of Wisconsin is "U-Double-U".

    And it's probably The Foundation that's doing this. Those lawyers are hated by most of the university, especially the faculty who's ideas are stolen and exploited. The Foundation made a killing off synthetic BGH. It's actually what started this whole university-patent thing. Before that universities research was to benifit society, not for quick cash.

  2. Re:Question by bubblewrapgrl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't know about other schools, but UW-Madison has been patenting the research of professors and other researchers on campus since 1925. There is a private, non-profit organization called the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Basically, they hold patents and license them out. The money that is collected is used to fund the university and other research on campus.

    Check out http://www.warf.ws for more information.