Sony loses $18.5M PSP patent suit

Sony is being stung by a lawsuit once again, as a Texas jury this week found the PlayStation Portable and a smattering of the company's other electronics in violation of an Agere Systems patent for storing headers in music files on a memory chip. As reported by the Tyler Morning Telegraph, the jury found that Sony willfully infringed on the patent, and it awarded Agere compensatory royalties of $18.5 million.

When the suit was originally filed in March of 2006, it included infringement claims for seven other patents, with the slate of complaints being whittled down over the intervening years. Also since the filing of the suit, Agere Systems has ceased to exist, having merged with silicon and software tech firm LSI Corporation in 2007.

Sony is no stranger to the penalties of patent infringement. In 2005, a judge ordered Sony to fork over $90 million to Immersion Corporation for infringing on patents the company holds in creating the vibration function of its DualShock controllers for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. While Sony opted to leave rumble out of its original Sixaxis PlayStation 3 controller, it eventually repaired its bridges with Immersion and licensed the technology for the DualShock 3.