Controller Patent Suit Won Against Sony

ivec writes "Immersion Corporation announced that the jury returned a verdict favorable to Immersion in its patent infringement suit against Sony Computer Entertainment. The jury found that Sony infringed all the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,275,213 and 6,424,333 and that those claims were valid. I was surprised how recent these filings were (2000 and 2001). The patents cover 'vibrating devices' such as joysticks."

Comments

Sony, Microsoft, no Nintendo?

[KDR_11k]

Why didn't they sue Nintendo? Were they afraid they'd get sued for infringing an earlier patent by Nintendo that described the same thing?

The "Prior Art" section of the Rumble Pak patent states that "Furthermore, computer games have been known, in which a vibration generating source is provided in a joy-stick, and a vibration is generated at the time of an attack to an own fighter from a player's enemy fighter in a shooting game, for example."

Since Immersion's patent apparently only covers Joysticks it might not conflict with the Rumble Pak Patent, but the Rumble Pak patent clearly states that there has been prior art for joysticks (and that the Rumble Pak has no prior art since it isn't a joystick).

It lists Research disclosure 28373, "Joystick with Tactile Feedback", disclosed anonymously Nov. 1987., perhaps that's our prior art. Can anyone get that document?

Re:n64?

[KDR_11k]

The Rumble Pak patent clearly states that it does not include Joysticks (which are what Immersion had patented here) since there's prior art for that. That prior art apparently dates back to an anonymous publication from 1987.

Isn't the timing in Sony's favour?

[TiggsPanther]

Not knowing all of the details I can't be sure, but if this is to do with the DualShock controller and vibrational feedback in games then the timing has to be in Sony's favour.

I followed the links to the two patent applications, and the earlier of the two was filed in May 2000. The DualShock controller and games were out before that. I know that Final Fantasy VIII was out in Japan in 1999, and that definitely had feedback during the Summons.

Having said that the article (and other articles linked from it) don't clarify whether it was the DualShock or the DualShock2 that was the culprit. Changes for the PS2 may well have infringed on the claims - but otherwise the controller was out before the claim was made.

It seems to me, then, that either the judges goofed or that there's more to this than is apparent from what the media are telling us.
Either that or you can sue for infringement fo a patent in a device that was built before your claim - which seems kinda daft to me, but wouldn't exactly surprise me anymore.