namelesstavern.net

Mar 28, 9:49 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sony Corp. <6758.T> said on Monday it was ordered by a U.S. court to halt sales of its blockbuster PlayStation consoles in the United States and pay $90 million in damages to a California tech company, Immersion Corp. , whose shares jumped more then 5 percent.

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), Sony's gaming unit, said it would appeal the decision by a California federal court in the patent infringement case.

For the time being, Sony will keep selling PlayStations as the order -- which covers the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, two game controllers and 47 software titles -- will not go into effect before the appeal, an SCE spokeswoman said. Sony will be paying compulsory license fees to Immersion, she added.

Games have been Sony's profit driver in recent years, accounting for 44 percent of the company's group operating profit from October to December, as it struggles with price declines at its electronics division.

Sony in January cut its operating profit estimate for this business year 31 percent, citing sharply falling prices of televisions, DVD recorders and other key products and weak demand for chips.

Immersion, a small, California-based developer of digital touch technologies, claimed Sony Computer Entertainment infringed on its technology that makes a game controller vibrate in sync with actions in games, the Japanese game maker said.

The $90 million awarded by the court is more than triple Immersion's total revenues of $23.8 million in 2004 and represents two-thirds of the company's current market value of around $135 million.

The court's decision confirmed a ruling by a California jury last year that ordered Sony to pay $82 million in the case. The amount was raised to slightly more than $90 million due to interest.

Immersion's stock rose 36 percent to $7.85 on the Inet electronic exchange, from its $5.75 close on Thursday.

Shares in Sony closed down 0.23 percent, underperforming the Tokyo stock market's electric machinery index <.IELEC.T>, which rose 0.32 percent.

In another intellectual property-related lawsuit between Japanese and U.S. technology companies, Toshiba Corp. <6502.T> was ordered by a California jury last week to pay $465 million in punitive and other damages to Lexar Media Inc. for stealing trade secrets. Toshiba, the world's seventh-largest chip maker, suggested it would appeal the decision.

Toshiba shares were down 0.22 percent at 446 yen, extending Friday's 0.45 percent slide.

That is fucking stupid. If they developed their own vibration technology and made it from scrath...this is ridiculous.

If they stole it from immersion that is fine. But somehow I am not seeing this.

well imersion stole vibrating from cell phones, and pagers who stole it from the Beach boys whole stole it from scientists.. who stole it from nature...

so lets see.. lets sue everyone for the fuck of it.

Its like howard stern said he came up with the idea of having naked women on his show.. which has been done first by Don and Mike (from what i have read) and plenty others before him. But he sued anyways.. never won shit cause everything in radio is stolen from someone else.

Same with the video game industry. I mean Tolkien can sue EVERYONE that makes fantasy RPG games. The police can sue for all police games, gangbangers for GTA series and others, NASA can sue also for space games, Every single sports franchise can sue EA sports (yes i kno they bought the rights but i am making a point)

If this is the ONLY thing immerision made that was worthwild... then i wouldn't give a flying shit about their lawsuit. Now if the PS design was stolen from them.. thats something different. Vibrating controllers were NEVER around. There was a plug in that made it do that for N64. Now controllers do it.. who cares

well


It's probably more like this Malluas


Imersion comes to sony and says, "hey, we can make these neato vibrating joysticks, wanna buy some?"

Sony says, "no"


Sony then produces neato vibrating joysticks oddly similar to the ones they didn't want to buy

lol well then wouldn't dildo companies be able to sue both of them? vibrating "joysticks"

i guess my point is unless they "STOLE" something this is stupid. But again we awarded a dumbass old lady that spilt coffee on herself a mil plus

Logitech and a few other companies have been paying Imersion for a few years already to license their technology. Sony is the only company that thinks they are above IP law. It serves em right if you ask me. They probably would've paid pennies if they had played by the rules in the first place.

-Tstorm