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PlayStation Sales Halted?
Narf Narf writes "According to Japan Today, the U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, has ordered Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and its U.S. unit to pay $90.7 million in damages to Immersion Corp. for patent infringement over controllers used with PlayStation game consoles. In the ruling handed down Thursday, the federal court also ordered Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Entertainment America Inc. to stop selling the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 game consoles using Dualshock controllers as well as more than 40 game software products." Update: 03/28 04:51 GMT by Z : ...which was followed immediately by an injunction, to allow Sony time for an appeal, and a compulsory licensing agreement.
Before everyone goes mental saying "what is there to patent on a vibrating controller" you should have a better understand of what Immersion's patents (and thus suit) covers. Immersion's patents relate to giving developers very fine-grained control over the motors driving the "vibration units" in things such as pagers, mobile phones, and yes game controllers. In particular they allow you to do more than just have "off/on" control. Play a game like Gran Turismo and you'll see what I mean - you really can feel the terrain (and your car's grip or lack of) through the Dual Shock controllers - they aren't simply in an on-off mode.
That is what the patents cover, and you'll notice that Microsoft have already settled with Immersion over a similar suit.
--- There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Links to the patents: 6,424,333, 6,275,213.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
because the patent refers to a specific implementation of the vibration technology. Microsoft licensed it. Nintendo's rumble pack is a completely different hardware technology that was developed independantly (and a year earlier) from Immersion's "haptic" force-feedback solution. You can get controllers that use Immersion's solution for GC from Logitech.
Here are a few Bullet Points:
A man-machine interface is disclosed which provides force and texture information to sensing body parts. The interface is comprised of a force actuating device that produces a force which is transmitted to a force applying device. The force applying device applies the generated force to a pressure sensing body part. A force sensor on the force applying device measures the actual force applied to the pressure sensing body part, while angle sensors measure the angles of relevant joint body parts. A computing device uses the joint body part position information to determine a desired force value to be applied to the pressure sensing body part. The computing device combines the joint body part position information with the force sensor information to calculate the force command which is sent to the force actuating device. In this manner, the computing device may control the actual force applied to a pressure sensing body part to a desired force which depends upon the positions of related joint body parts. In addition, the interface is comprised of a displacement actuating device which produces a displacement which is transmitted to a displacement applying device (e.g., a texture simulator). The displacement applying device applies the generated displacement to a pressure sensing body part. The force applying device and displacement applying device may be combined to simultaneously provide force and displacement information to a pressure sensing body part.
I recall being a kid back in 1993 and going to a shopping mall and visiting EB games. They had this demonstration joystick that you could set to have different sensations and they were very real. Everything from flying to firing a machine gun. That was the technology that they made possible. Sony will have to learn to play ball if they use patented techology. It may be in a US court, but Immersion also has a patent for the same technology in Japan and IIRC, the US has harmonized it's patent system internationally.
For the record,
I have a Logitech "3D Mouse" I bought in 1995 to play Descent and experiment with a cheap (~$50) Six-Degrees-of-Freedom input device for a VR-related project I was working on in college.
It also had a crude feedback mechanism that was licensed from Immersion that was just like the dualshock's offset-balast on a DC-motor with a simple motor speed control. Great device despite it having a slow RS232 interface. Anyway... Immersion was in devices being used for gaming atleast as early as 1995, perhaps even as early as 1994. The patent reference for the "interactive feedback device" is "Patent Pending"...
So, your claim of frivolous patent claim sniping is a bit off-base. The 2000/2001 dates you reference could be the dates of official patent number filing/issuance. Also it is not uncommon for a patent developer to re-file addenda or refinements to patents they have already put in for review if the addenda do not change the nature of the patented item from its original filing.
Immersion had a booth at the Spring 1995 VR Expo mini-con that was held in NYC. I was there. Besides context-variable vibration feedback they also had sample devices using directional linear-bumping feedback using small, variable current solenoids. They're legit...
What's worse in this typical knee-jerk Slashdot goon response that I'm seeing all over this topic is that a JUDGE in a COURT held a protracted HEARING with a lot of EVIDENCE and FACTS in the case and came to an >>INFORMED decision. But one look at the news in the U.S. and one can see that the idea of and respect for the judiciary process is completely lost on most people (including many folks in the legislative domain).
youareaclown,
peace,
and carrots,
Levendis47
--==[ AOL YIM ICQ : Levendis47 : levendis47@yahoo.com ]==--
Parent is wrong in almost every respect. The moderators need to be shot.
In 1994 the rules changed so that patents received one of two possible terms of protection: 17 years from date of issue, or 20 years from the application filing date, whichever was greater. See 35 U.S.C. 154(a)(2) and http://www.lectlaw.com/files/inp03.htm
These patents do not qualify as "submarine patents" because the patents were filed well after June 7, 1995. At that point, all original patent applications were only eligible for a term extending 20 years from the application filing date. Thus, Immersion Corp was only burning their own term to collect royalties by filing continuations and amending the claims.
The classic "submarine patent", on the other hand, was filed in the early stages of development in a field and then delayed until well beyond the ~17 term that a prompt prosecution action in the USPTO would have obtained, so that the royalties would be collected from a well developed commercial base instead of from a newly developing market. Jerome Lemmelson (and his estate) became a billionaire by exploting this aspect of the U.S. patent system.