Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo sued over joystick port patent |
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Videogame console manufacturers are once again under legal fire, and this time it's not just one company, it's all three of the big boys. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are being sued by Texas-based Fenner Investments for infringing on the company's patent number 6,297,751 for a "low-voltage joystick port interface."The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and seeks damages and an injunction against Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo for each company's willful infringement of the patent.
The patent in question was filed for in 1998 and awarded in 2001. It is described as "a low power port which interfaces a typical 5 Volt joystick peripheral device with a lower power computer port. The low-voltage joystick port interface includes a bidirectional buffer circuit and a pulse generator which, together, generate a digital pulse signal, representing a joystick coordinate position, based on an input analog measurement signal."
Lawsuits are familiar occurrences to all three console manufacturers, with Sony's court battles against Immersion Corporation over rumble technology - which incidentally has yet to be settled - being the most recent similar case. A quick Google search for Fenner Investments meanwhile churned out almost zero info save for two other patent infringement cases brought up by the company - one against Juniper Networks and the other against Alcatel.
Via Gamasutra
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Comments
Sony will rip the stciks of the next controller, Microsoft will pay them 5 gazillion dollars for rights, and Nintendo will just smile and say, quietly, "f*ck you!"
Agree 100%. ROFL
Joysticks have been in use for ages, and I doubt any of the companies would change the perfectly good joystick technology from their previous consoles to technology owned by someone else. It's just not logical. Remember that company that sued Nintendo and Microsoft over their controllers? Nothing came of it at all.
For one, they would have to sue thousands of other companies that make controllers.
whats next, suing people for having buttons on their gamepads?? give it up...
so elts jsut sew everyone that makes any type of controllers with joysticks thats great next thing you know we will be playing games with our mind and *****
Damn where do these people come out with these lawsuits, I would have never thinked of nothing like that.
Well, they filed the patent in '98... Guess they forgot about the dual-shock (and the earlier Japanese version dual-shock without the rumble). Hmmm, those were 5v devices also.... I hate the +"on the X" patents. Geee, lets quickly patent 3.3v joysticks, yeah that's it.
Id Love to see that happen :) it will be soooo hilarious.
for using the fart retracting stuff on the controllers. yuo can virtually fart on the controller and the stink will be gone in a matter of seconds. i call it plastic!
very well said dom, but i guess the big N + S would rather say BAKER0, and yeah mr.bill would slap their faces with greens.
ps3 and wii doesnt use hardware ports, they are wireless and uses bluetooth technology which they acquired rights for use. even if you plug the sixaxis on the ps3 it just uses the electricity coming from it to charge the battery. albeit you can use any usb port to charge your sixaxis, even PC and ps2 or even your ipod wall adapter. and a no-name company sueing big game companies? if the big companies win the lawsuit how an they pay the big companies for the trouble they made, will they put themselves in jail if they cant prove that the big game companies do infringe copyright? and hey why didnt they stop the launching of those consoles? im sure they know the specs of the consoles before they got out, so why now?
They do it right when the console comes out because, since the sueing company is small, when they sue not only are they hoping for big bucks but it gets the fart chokers some publicity. I say they are no account losers. Lazer OUT!
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