Sony ordered to halt sales of Playstation in US

[MPUK News]

Sony have been orderd to stop selling the Playstation, Playstation 2 and over 40 games in the US, after a lawsuit against them from Immersion, which clams they used their patent for the dual shock controllers. Sony also has been told to pay $90.7m for damages. Sony are appealing the courts ruling.

Source <A Href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4387045.stm">BBC News</A>

Posted By: Jazza

[Optimus]

I wonder whether this will also affect the Xbox, since the pads pretty much rip off the dual shock system...

I think the GC pads might be different enough to avoid infringement...

[wizard1974uk]

I wouldn't worry too much, Sony will do some chest beating, drag it out for a couple of months on appeal in the mean time still churn out PS2s and the games, then pay some royalties to Immersion in an out of court settlement.

[no friends]

:/

wtf - lol - ps dual shocks came out ****ing ages ago - why now???

How bizzare

[Jazza]

Microsoft settled out of court a year or so back, and I believe Nintendo managed to get it for free

Originally posted by Optimus
I wonder whether this will also affect the Xbox, since the pads pretty much rip off the dual shock system...

I think the GC pads might be different enough to avoid infringement...

[werewolf]

Originally posted by no friends
:/

wtf - lol - ps dual shocks came out ****ing ages ago - why now???

How bizzare

my guess is immersion were trying to reach an amicable settlement with Sony for a long time/coudn't afford the potential court costs or something along those lines.

I've heard they were originally asking for something like $300 million :eek: which would have worked out at about $1 per PS/PSone/PS2 shipped up until last summer/autum (going in part by Sony's own press releases regarding the number of units shipped up to march last year).

With regards to Nintendo, I'm guessing the reason there was that their system is probably sufficiently different (wasn't the original rumblepack a single motor/weight rather than 2 differing ones).


It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, but no matter what happens I can't see Sony having to stop shipping the controllers etc, as if they lose the appeal they'll probably sort out a licence with Immersion very quickly.

[Optimus]

edit - or not... :rolleyes: