Court rules for Immersion; Sony to pay up

Immersion sued the joy out of Sony's sticks back in 2002; new court ruling forces Sony to pay almost $27 million annually to the technology maker.

Sony's Dual Shock controllers are doing more than just rumbling around in gamers' hands these days. They're also shaking up a few corporate accounts. Earlier this week, a new court ruling in favor of technology company Immersion sent shock waves through the hallways of Sony.

San Jose-based Immersion, which owns the patent on technology used for the rumble feature in Sony's Dual Shock controllers, successfully sued the electronics giant for patent infringement in 2002. A jury ordered Sony to pay Immersion $82 million for three years' worth of damages.

On Monday, a California judge ordered Sony to pay Immersion a licensing fee of 1.37 percent per quarter based on the sales of PlayStation units, Dual Shock controllers, and a selection of PlayStation 2 games that use Immersion's technology.

Microsoft, which employs the same rumble technology in the controllers for its Xbox console, avoided a similar lawsuit in 2003 by signing a licensing deal with Immersion in an out-of-court settlement.

3 Comments

  • DahLong

    Posted Jan 10, 2008 8:49 pm PT

    sony has the rumble dual shock for the new ps3 controller, cloud737

  • Sick3r

    Posted Jan 10, 2008 6:36 pm PT

    ahhh, this sucks.

  • Cloud737

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 8:10 am PT

    Lol, even better for Sony.
    How about you finally accept to pay for the license and give us rumble in the ps3, Sony?

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