Sony ordered to pay 90.7 million dollars in damages.

[Artlover]

http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/03/27/2...tid=123&tid=155

-and-

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&...cat=4&id=332037

-and-

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050...50327-4739.html

[Ferris]

Thats silly. If anyone deserved to file a claim over the controllers its Nintendo Ltd. of Japan. The original PlayStation is the offspring of Sony's development for the Super Nintendo CD System that was supposed to spar against Sega CD for the Genesis. Look at the original PlayStation design, color and especially the controllers in contrast to the SNES. The PS controllers are almost identical to their SNES counterparts but with handles and an additional set of L/R buttons.

[Stingray]

It's not the actual controllers that are being disputed though, it's the vibration functionality.

 

-S

[Bruce Tomlin]

I seem to recall hearing that this is why the N64 had its rumble motor in a controller cartridge. There was something about the patent by which you could go around it this way. Note also that the Dreamcast also had its rumble motor in a controller cartridge.

[Artlover]

Wonder how this will impact Xbox & Gamecube.

[jsoper]

Heh, the first company to make vibrators should sue all of them

[Avid Fan]

they actually made the 1st ones out of electric toothbrushes in Germany, maybe they should get the money

[Ferris]

lol good point.

 

still.... what about vibrator functions in 1980's pagers?

[jeepnut24]

Nintendo legally liscenced the technology, and MS bought a large part of the stock so they are not effected at all. Only sony stole the technology. They should have gone the MS route also, or the Nintendo route. Now they get to pay.

[Lost Monkey]

Wonder how this will impact Xbox & Gamecube.

 

Microsoft settled last year and Nintendo had already licensed the tech...

[AtariDude]

Sony should just make with the cash and move on. I wonder why they are trying to delay this. Seems to be taking away from their focus on making video game products.

[Dones]

Careful there guys, Novaxpress might get mad you are spreading news he disapproves and might throw the smack down on you... (LOL)

[Hydian]

Something is fishy about all of this. The reason I say that is that my dad used to work for a company that makes medical equipment called Nomos (I think that's the name) here in Pittsburgh. They have the patents for force feedback which supposedly covers the vibration stuff in gaming controllers. They had a bunch of consoles in their offices because of it as well as licensing agreements with the console makers from what I understood.

 

I'm wondering if there is an overlap of patents or maybe Nomos sold the patents off (they were apparently aquired by someone else last year.)

[mechanized]

Like was noted earlier, the problem is in the vibration (and/or the communication between vibration mechanism and game software). I've never opened up an N64 Rumble Pak, but I have broken a PS2 controller and have seen the mechanism... it's a very efficient design for what they were looking for (causing vibration/rumbling) and it's pretty easy to see how that design was most attractive to Sony. It has relatively few moving parts, consisting of mostly a weight that resembles a stack of nickles skewered with a small rod, with about a third of the stack removed along one edge, such that when the rod spins (and spins the nickle-stack thing) it will not spin in a balanced manner. It's one of those things that's not terribly complicated, but certainly took an innovative spark to create.

 

 

 

The official court order is supplied below. (NOTE the list of game titles supplied in the court order!)

 

****

Full text of the court order:

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

 

IMMERSION CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA, INC., SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT, INC., and MICROSOFT CORPORATION,

Defendants.

 

No. C 02-0710 CW

 

JUDGMENT

 

This action came on for trial before the Court, the Honorable Claudia Wilken, United States District Judge, presiding, and the issues having been duly tried and the Jury having duly rendered its verdict as to the claims presented to it, and the Court having entered its findings as to the defense of inequitable conduct,

 

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:

 

That judgment is entered in favor of Plaintiff Immersion Corp. (Immersion) against Defendants Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc., (SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., (SCEI) (collectively Sony) on Immersion's claims of infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,424,333 and 6,275,213. Judgment is also entered in Immersion's favor on Sony's counter-claims for declaratory judgment of non-infringement. Immersion shall recover of Defendants SCEA and SCEI jointly and severally the amount of $82,000,000.00. This sum shall be paid directly to Immersion forthwith; no escrow account is required. In accordance with the portion of the Court's January 10, 2005 order awarding Immersion pre-judgment interest at the prime rate, Immersion shall recover of Defendants pre-judgment

interest in the amount of $8,703,608.00.1 Immersion shall recover its costs from Sony.

 

In a separate order, the Court also issues a permanent injunction against Sony, stayed pending appeal to the Federal Circuit, and a compulsory license fee for the duration of the

stay.

 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

 

Dated: 3/24/05

 

CLAUDIA WILKEN

United States District Judge

 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

 

IMMERSION CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA, INC., SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT, INC., and MICROSOFT CORPORATION,

Defendants.

 

No. C 02-0710 CW

 

ORDER ENTERING PERMANENT INJUNCTION AND GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO STAY INJUNCTION PENDING APPEAL

 

For the reasons set forth in its January 10, 2005 Order, and having entered judgment in favor of Plaintiff Immersion Corp. (Immersion), the Court hereby PERMANENTLY ENJOINS Defendants Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc., (SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., (SCEI) (collectively Sony) from manufacturing, using, and/or selling in, or importing into, the United States the infringing Sony Playstation system, including its Playstation consoles, Dualshock controllers, and those games found by the jury to infringe. {FN1: The jury found that the following games, in conjunction with the Playstation consoles and Dualshock controllers, infringed either the '213 patent, the '333 patent or both patents: A Bug's Life; Amplitude; Ape Escape; Atlantis: The Lost Empire; Bloody Roar 2; Cool Boarders 3; Cool Boarders 4; Cool Boarders 2001; Crash Bash; Crash Team Racing; Drakan: The Ancients' Gate; Emperor's New Groove; Extermination; FantaVision; Final Fantasy X; Formula One 2001; The Getaway; Gran Turismo; Gran Turismo 2; Gran Turismo 3; Grand Theft Auto: Vice City; Grand Theft Auto 3; Grind Session; ICO; Jak & Daxter; Kinetica; Kingdom Hearts; Legend of the Dragoon; The Mark of Kri; Medal of Honor Frontline; Medievil 2; Metal Gear Solid 2; Monster's, Inc.; Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus; SOCOM Navy Seals; Speed Punks; Spyro: Ripto's Rage; Spyro: Year of the Dragon; Stuart Little 2; Syphon Filter 2; Syphon Filter 3; Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3; Twisted Metal: Black; Twisted Metal 4; Twisted Metal: Small Brawl; Treasure Planet; and War of the Monsters.} As described in the January 10 Order, no recall is required of products already sold, but Sony will pay a license fee on all products already placed in the stream of commerce.

 

The Court GRANTS Sony's counter-motion for a stay (Docket No. 1370) of the injunction pending appeal, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62©. In making this determination, the Court considers the strength of Sony's showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal, whether Sony will be irreparably injured absent a stay, whether the stay will substantially injure Immersion, and where the public interest lies. Standard Havens Products, Inc., v. Gencor Indus., Inc., 897 F.2d 511, 512 (Fed. Cir. 1990), quoting Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S. 770, 776, (1987). The Court finds that on balance, these factors weigh in favor of granting a stay. None of the authority cited by Immersion suggests that a stay of the injunction pending appeal would be an abuse of discretion. As long as the injunction is stayed, the compulsory license remains in effect.

 

Sony has filed with the Court a "supplemental submission" of updated sales data for the year 2004. Sony's evidence shows that the games found by the jury to infringe now represent a smaller proportion of overall game sales; for instance, none of the top ten best-selling games for 2004 were accused. See Mehta Decl., Ex. D, TRSTS Report for December 2004. On the other hand, Immersion has provided the Court with supplemental evidence from its expert, Dr. Colgate, showing that Sony has continued to release games that contain the complex vibration found by the jury to infringe. See Colgate Decl. 5-6. As Sony notes, "the video game industry is driven by trends," and "games go in and out of style in months." Sony Supplemental Submission Re: Updated Sales Data Relevant to Motions for Injunction and Stay at 2. Absent evidence from Sony that it has redesigned its products so as to avoid the systems and methods found by the jury to infringe, the Court declines to revise the scope of its injunction based on the introduction of new games and the decline in popularity of the accused games.

 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

 

Dated: 3/24/05

 

CLAUDIA WILKEN

United States District Judge

****

 

 

The following is an excerpt from Reuters:

 

***

Sony Fights $117m PlayStation Ruling

 

Sony's game unit has been ordered by a court to pay about $117 million in damages and to halt game machine sales in the US in a patent infringement case against Immersion Corp.

 

Sony Computer Entertainment said it disagreed with the decision by a federal district court in California and would appeal to a higher court.

 

SCE said it will continue US sales as the suspension order, which covers PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles, two game controllers and 47 software titles, will not go into effect before the appeal and because Sony will be paying compulsory licence fees to Immersion, an SCE spokeswoman said.

 

Immersion, a California-based developer of tactile feedback technology, claimed Sony Computer Entertainment infringed on its technologies that make a game controller vibrate in sync with actions in games, the Japanese game maker said.

 

The court's decision confirmed a ruling by a California jury last year that ordered Sony to pay damages.

 

Shares in Sony were down 0.45 per cent at 4,380 yen, underperforming the Tokyo stock market's electric machinery index, which rose 0.46 per cent.

 

In another intellectual property-related lawsuit between Japanese and US technology companies, Toshiba Corp was ordered by a California jury last week to pay a total of $US465 million in punitive and other damages to Lexar Media Inc for stealing trade secrets.

 

Toshiba, the world's seventh-largest chip maker, suggested it would appeal the decision.

***

 

 

 

Summarized: Sony was found to have been infringing upon Immersion's vibration mechanics/mechanisms regarding its controllers and nearly fifty games and found in favor of Immersion. Immersion was awarded millions (though the exact amount is a little hard to pick out). Sony was granted a stay of the injunction as the appeal goes through, based in part on the court's findings that a total injunction would irreparably harm Sony, that many of the games cited are past their prime, that the injunction as it would be would not particularly benefit Immersion, and .. something else. I tried to Bold the most notable bits for easy skimming.

 

 

(And if anyone has the proverbial wild hair, this isn't about inciting some PlayStation Fanboy riot... it's just news, from one PS2 owner to a bunch of other people.)

[SteveW]

Of course, this could always work in Sony's favor. With an injunction keeping PS2s from being sold because of the offending controllers, sales of the PSP will rise. That'll get them more entrenched into the portable market, which is always good for long term profitability.

[mechanized]

Steve, do note that the injunction was stayed pending the appeal. Sony will still be selling PS2s and other infringing items, but will be paying compulsory licensing fees to Immersion during that interim.