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?