RSSPatent Ruling Could Affect Sony PS3
By Ed Oswald | Published March 13, 2006, 4:08 PM
A federal judge denied an effort by Sony Monday to overturn a jury verdict that awarded $90.7 million to Immersion over accusations of patent infringement. The ruling came after Immersion sued the PlayStation maker over the use of "haptic technology," which Sony calls DualShock.
Haptic technology is the term game manufacturers use to describe what makes game controllers vibrate in response to game activity. An Oakland, Calif. jury found Sony guilty of violating patents surrounding the technology in September 2004.
The DualShock feature is currently included in the PlayStation 2 and Sony may be forced to drop or modify such functionality for the PS3.
Sony attempted to have the jury's decision thrown out based on allegations that Immersion withheld information of earlier haptic technology inventions by a former consultant, Craig Thorner. Sony maintained that the information could have changed the outcome of the trial.
However, the judge said she doubted the reliability of the consultant's testimony. She also said a $150,000 payment by Sony to license his patents likely influenced Thorner's testimony that was given in support of the motion to overturn the trial, and it could have been viewed as a payment for positive testimony.
"The court finds that Sony has not presented clear and convincing evidence of misconduct by Immersion that would warrant a new trial," U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken wrote in her decision.
However, Immersion isn't planning on letting the matter stand as is. The company told the Wall Street Journal it is considering legal action against Sony for the alleged payment for testimony. Neither Thorner nor Sony would comment.
YAY!!!!!!!!! I love Nintendo!!!
Lets sue them for using microproccessors, and then they have to give up the PS3 (it is using 7 of them, that is why it´s so powerful)!
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|Actually the Cell has a total of 9 Cores
1 PPE core
8x SPE Cores
But the 8th SPE Core is a dummy core, it does nothing, but in the 2 Beta IBM Blade Servers, it utilizes all 9 Cores. Yeah you heard me right, IBM has 2 Beta Blade servers running the Cell processor on Linux. The Servers should be availible next month or so. PS3 is unknown though. I keep hearing compatibility issues between Cell and Blu-Ray of some sort. Sony isn't commenting on the problems so everyone is somewhat left in the dark. Also Toshiba is working on Plasma and LCD Televisions using the Cell processor, not much word on how that's going either.
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|This verdict makes it 90%+ certain that Sony will settle this suit and take a license with Immersion. That will triple to quintuple Immersion's revenues, which means the price of Immersion' stock (IMMR on Nasdaq) will jump accordingly. I am a already a shareholder and expect the share price to go from $7.50 today to $45-75 in near term.
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|Lets add a rapid heating technology so that it burns the crap out of you at the times that there would have been vibration!!!!!
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|HAHA nice one Komp. surely Das Mod was not serious???
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|lol
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|instead of vibration why not make the controller release a small ammount of electric discharge .... ( this in case they are forced to drop such technology from the ps3 )
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|How about a controller surrounded by small holes where small motorized pins come out and pierce your skin.
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|Screw them for everything they can, and then some.
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|funny, and this is different than when ebay was sued for pantent infringement?
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|There's a new technology from Japan, i believe it's from docomo, that is like ear plugs to control liquid in human ears. What it does is to un-balance the liquid to make you feel like turning right and left or stopping.
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|That sounds pretty sick. A lot better then the dated RumblePak! Maybe shake the fluid when you get shot...until people start vomiting...
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|neta, but what's that got to do with suing? thinking ya might have replied to the wrong topic hmm
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