Immersion wins patent-infringement suit vs. Sony

By Chris Kohler, GameSpot
Posted Sep 23, 2004 12:29 pm PT

Federal court finds that PlayStation hardware infringed on San Jose firm's patents, awards $82 million in damages.

This week, a federal jury awarded San Jose-based Immersion $82 million in a patent-infringement suit that the firm had brought against Sony. The court found that the PlayStation hardware, as well as the Dual Shock controllers and 47 different game titles released by the company, all infringed on Immersion's patents. Sony said it will appeal the decision.

The infringements all centered around force feedback devices; the company holds patents for what it calls "vibro-tactile" technologies that make the video game player feel as if he is "touching" an object in the game. The jury's award was less than the amount requested--in fact, Immersion had asked for $299 million in damages.

Immersion brought lawsuits against Sony and Microsoft in 2002. Last year, the company settled with Microsoft to the tune of $26 million. Microsoft acquired a 10 percent stake in the company under the terms of the settlement.

4 Comments

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Hameyadea
Posted May 25, 2007 3:13 am PT

That much on a conroller patent?
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EMAN2g
Posted Jan 10, 2007 8:51 pm PT

ownd...they should've bankrupt PHONY...for their stealin' ways...1st Nintendo now..Immersion
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Cloud737
Posted Nov 27, 2006 8:08 am PT

Well, Sony`s arrogance really screwed them up. They could have been smart like ms and settle it out of court, thus paying only $26 million instead of $82 million, and still have rumble on the ps3 (and maybe even get a stake in immersion as ms did), but Sony really had to be really arrogant.
First they steal the technology, and now their arrogant and say that`s for granted. Well, you got what you deserved.
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comthitnuong
Posted Jul 14, 2006 12:49 pm PT

299 million....
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