Sony Sued Again, Agere System Cries Patent Infringements |
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Looks like Sony lawyers are due back in court. After Immersion won more than $90 million for its Dual Shock patent suit last March, another company, Agere Systems is taking Sony through the legal circus.According to the semiconductor company, Sony committed patent infringements on eight products, including the PSP, PS2, PS3 (based on announced specs), VAIO computers, Handycams, Walkman players, Memory Stick Duos, and Location Free TV. The technology being contested are the LAN technology and tungsten plugs, among other things.
The lawsuit claims Sony willingly infringed on the patents and - here's the scary part - Agere wants to see Sony's books so it can determine how much money they can wring from the electronics giant. Sony denies the charges, naturally, and claims some of the patents issued by Agere omitted important information when it filed for them. Does that means some of the patents were filed properly but Sony used them anyway?
According to lawsuit-magnet Sony, it has the rights to use seven of the eight patents through a 1989 cross-licensing deal with AT&T and Lucent (whose microelectronics group became Agere Systems). Sony believes the patents in question are invalid and wants the case flushed down the judge's toilet. This is not the first time Agere sued Sony. By the way, Sony counter-sued Agere last month and demanded a jury trial.
Looks like a job tailored-made for Denny Crane.
Via Gamespot
18 Jumps Custom firmware 5.50GEN-D now out
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Comments [refresh]
Are they going to pull the semiconductors out of the PS3 too now? ;)
Sony is always screwd...
Sony, stop copying ideas, breaking laws and stealing others patents!!!
Sony, take a look at NINTENDO (or atleast microsoft!!!)
And start playing fairly !!!
LOL
#3 if sony looks at nintendo or microsoft they will just steal their ideas too!
1. the way nintendo is triing to revolutionize the gaming industry via the new controller.
(lets take the snes controller and make 2 shoulder buttons on each side... hmmm... now we need some more grip...
ah... the n64 has an analog stick... lets make 2 of them on our controller... so it is cooler! ...what, their controller is rumbling?
hm.... nintendo has some kind of motion sensing... lets do this too, but STAY CHEAP IN PRODUCTION!! So we can be more profitable)
2. xbox live?
Yeah but heaven forbid sony copys something. Yet we have good ole nintendo who copies nobody right?
*rolls eyes*
Gues what, sony's exsact concept for the ps3 controller exsisted in a 3rd party ps1 controller long before the Wii ever exsisted on paper. Oh no nintendo gets credit first.
Not to mention the same concept exsisted in a microsoft controller for pc called the sidewinder.
Oh yeah forgot to mention nintendo's most recent copy.
Oh yeah that wonderful DS & it's touch screen. Yeah no handheld before had one *rolls eyes*.
Pda, Cell phones, Zodiac & even the Gamecon (a portable gaming system) had touch screens to them. All long before the DS.
Tilt sensitivity (PS3/Sidewinder) and MOTION sensitivity (Wii) are two different things. That's like comparing riding a bike to driving a car.
And DS is--to my knowledge--the first portable system with two screens, one being a touchscreen. It's not the same thing as what you mentioned.
Just because an MP3 Player plays music doesn't mean it copied off of CD players. It's different, and more advanced, technology.
Besides, Nintendo came out with this stuff years after what you mentioned. Sony threw together that PooS controller like two months after Nintendo announced what the Wiimote does.
And even if you DO want to still count what Nintendo did as copying, it is still MUCH, MUCH, MUUUUCH less than what Sony copied from Nintendo. Pretty much everything standard or videogame related today originally came from or was popularized by Nintendo.
HAHAHAHAHAHHA NEVER HAVE FAIR AND MICROSOFT IN THE SAME SENTENCE!!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MS GOT TO WHERE THEY ARE DO YOU? BY STEALING!!! THATS RIGHT, YOUR SUPPOSED FAIR COMPANY GOT STARTED ALL THANKS TO APPLE AND DOS. MICROSFT STOLE DOS FROM APPLE AND SLAPPED AN "MS' IN FRONT OF IT (MS-DOS). AT THAT TIME PERIOD, DOS WAS A MASSSSSIIIIIVVV EEEE BREAKTHROUGH IN THE COMPUTING WORLD., AND MICROSOFT COULDNT HANDLE BEING KICKED OUT OF THE GAME SO QUICKLY (THEY HAVENT BEEN FORMED FOR TOO LONG YET), SO THEY DID WHAT THEY DO BEST, STEAL.
The patent office will allow a new patent on a old idea if the new patent is only little different. All patents require prior art or a base for the idea and improvements. everybody steals.
Just how the ***** is sony still standing...their bank account cant be that huge, they are being sued left and right, and having to pay for costs for the ps3, plus its employees, it makes me wonder once again, how the hell are they still standing as a company?
what ever happened to your n64 emuuuu psmonkey
Reneid Klein,
Actualy not all of today's standars are entirly Nintendo. While nintendo has quite a few; sony, microsoft, sega & atari have also brought alot to this industry that we all use today. That is my problem. Everybody gives nintendo credit but nobody cares to remember what everbody else did.
Also the idea of duel screens is not original. Nintendo actualy gets credit for the original design wich came from the Game & Watch series developed by Gunpei (maker of the gameboy & virtual boy). The DS in a sense is a upgrade GBA unit and the combinding of the Gamewatch Duel Screen setup & a touch pad over the bottom screen. There is little inovative in the DS. It really is just a frankenstine that actualy took japan by storm. I know alot about the history of the DS since I am a comercial programmer and at 1 time had early prototypes before it even became the DS (still kick my self to this day for not hiding the pcb in my desk, nobody would have realised we still had one).
BULL3TPR00F,
Microsoft did not steal dos from apple. Microsoft bought licensing rights to QDOS from SCP then eventualy bought the exclusive rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS
Fyi, GUI driven OS first used by MacOS was taken from Xerox (stupid move by Xerox to let them walk off with it). So not even Apple was original on that idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface
Please see my website where I posted an update.
rofl at #5.
What do you expect?
Oh let's NOT use something that's good in the hands, etc.
seems its a new thing to sue sony
Good ! it's about time the small guy takes out a Big Giant Slob like Sony, lol
To all you idiots who think Nintendo had motion sensoring technology before Sony you are very wrong. Sony filed the patent for the technology in 1999. Nintendo uses a different system of motion sensoring so it was okay for them to use it. On the other hand Microsoft sucks overall anyway. The 360 has been out since November of last year and just hit 2 million units in the U.S. They F****** suck
ah who gives a shiet F**** the BIT**** that sued them
lets not forget that sony developed for nintendo. they were working on a cd/cartidge based system. so its only natural that sony would be influenced by nintendo
You fanboys are so up the ass with hugging your consoles and hating Sony so much that you are actually taking this as good news? Maybe Sony did infringe on some patents, but you could also tell that the company suing them is probably some lowly company that hasn't made much money and wants to milk Sony for as much money as they can.
None the less, Sony is a vital part of the electronics world. They push for new technology and strive to push the boarders of what we have today in electronics. If Sony goes bankrupt or anything along those lines, we are losing a great company that has been with us through years and years.
This is what happens to liers and cheats (Sony) who have no respect for other people or companys.
This sucks.
liars and cheaters? the onlything they 'lie' about is to the cosumers, and guess what they tell you the truth, maybe in different wording so it doesnt look so bad. They could have made every person in the world turn on immersion at e3 if they didnt respect them at least a little. They repect consumers listen to our complaints wants and needs. Theyve been screwed over by nintendo, and had some business deals go askewed but thats business. They were allowed by the cross-liscening deal in 1989 to use these patents, the one company, agere system before they steped off from Lucent. If that cross-liscening deal still stand and didnt expire during the ps1's lifespan, agere has ***** on them and are probably on the lets sue sony bandwagon like people with take-two right now. If you think sony is a bunch of liars and cheats because you dont get the news of what they announce and the undertones behind what they tell the populace out of repect for other companies, then boss look at Microsoft and even Nintendo, they both have done same if not worse(MS).
The game console market is full of stupid retards. Even before this has gone through the courts they are assuming Sony did wrong simply because they have developed a snotty spoilt brat kind of hatred towards them for... trying to be a business like every other. It's really kind of funny because Nintendo virtually does exactly the same thing as Sony time and again (proprietary formats, copy protection etc) and often things quite worse (planned obsolescence like the obviously flawed lack of backlighting on the original GBA and the initial poor looking design of the DS coupled with low quality screens... now that they rectifying this and sell you a DS again you think it's cool, lol).
If you want to talk about innovation in the handhelds look no farther than Sony. No other mainstream company produced such a powerful handheld system that has a strong capacity to compete with what had become a near Monopoly for Nintendo. If you still think Nintendo is innovative, look at the complete and utter lack of innovation in the entire gameboy line with it's molasses slow technical development. For over a decade they have been selling you virtually the same system with extremely minor technical development. Even the DS is generations behind the PSP in terms of technology, but if there is anything good that can be attributed to it's evolution you can thank that Sony for pushing the market into that direction. Rest assured, Nintendo will produce a more powerful handheld system next and it will be a lot more capable than the system they would have produced if it hadn't been for the competition Sony is providing.
Considing the strong brand power of Nintendo in the handheld market, Sony has to-date actually done an incredible job. It's only going to get better.
man can't the company stop their stupid pursuits!!!
this is stupid, 1st the immersion rumble, WTF, you think nobody but immersion could think of something as "hard to imagine" as rumble in a controller :| wtf, anyway now that sony and microsoft have paid to immersion ( yes, to the supid ass holes up who said M$ was better ), now they get sued for stupid and not even right things aout anything STUPID, this kinda remind me of Da Vinci Code being sued by a stupid GAY who lost anyway BUT his book became so popular because everyone wanted to know if yes or no he had copied... I suppose aeger wanna be more popular? anyway if 1 out of 8 is a real steal, then JUST PAY sony!! and you who are bashing sony FU** OFF!! you SHOULD know M$ stole immersion and a lot of others too, you should even know that Mr. Gates stole "windows" so shut the fuc* up! and nintendo is not better they stoled the wiiMote, the most important thing in the wii!!! they stole it to dreamcast:
http://mail.suneet.com/soniczone/news/archive/march99/proto/image9.jpg
http://mail.suneet.com/soniczone/news/archive/march99/proto/image8.jpg
so anyway everybody is stealer, the thing is : STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!!! NOBODY CARES
great response "Police"
his comments are all very true.
sony is an innovator that ushers in new ideas and technology.
'Business ethics' is an oxymoron (contradictive) .
But don't think that Microsoft and Nintendo are somehow led by King Arthur and his Knights of the Round, because they aren't. I really hate you self-righteous @sses who eat and ***** all the slander and libel when your 'home team' does the exact same $hit, but you somehow 'conveniently overlook' it all. QUIT BEING TOOLS!
The lesson of the day: "No one can earn a million dollars honestly" - William Jennings Bryan
Kudos 'Police'
All of you screaming at Sony to stop copying and play things fair, have you looked at these patents. These patents cover innovations that every major electronics company use. Nintendo uses it, Microsoft uses it, every laptop producer uses them. THey can do this because they cross-liscense their patents (If you don't sue me, I won't sue you).
Every major electroics company holds tens of thousands of patents that all the other companies have to use to build anything using technology invented in the last 20 years. If this company that's suing Sony is still producing something electronic at all, their products probably infringe on over a hundred sony patents.
That's why big companies cross-liscense, otherwise they couldn't produce anything at all! If this company isn't just a patent troll, and actually produces anything, Sony can stomp them into the ground. And they can, in return, stomp sony into the ground (unless they're much smaller). It's like nuclear cold war, mutually assured destruction.
It's time to get rid of the patent system, it only benefits patent trolls, lawyers and help the big companies get rid of smaller competition. And remember: the only thing worse than a state monopoly (which all americans seem to fear more than the apocalypse) is a private monopoly.
Sony has legal rights to 7 of the 8 patents anyway. So those peeps are just talking out of thier arse. And the 8th patent, I am pretty sure Sony created it on Sony's own, as Sony got all the details on how it actually works while that the company suing only got an outline and some patent with no actual working stuff. Another pathetic attempt to gain scam money from Sony.
...this begs the question: Why now? These companies are just sitting on their patents and waiting for tech to take off so they can go off raping successful companies rather than being the successes themselves. It's the tech industries real life version of 'Camping'.
Dang.. sony need to stop getting sued... who care if they steal ideas? is the dumb ppl that did a bad job covering up... if sony keep getting sued... we wont get ps4 or psp2... imagine that.. living in a world of blue screen of death while fighting enemys alongside mario.... that would suck..
yeah thats right #32, without sony we're lost! I don't want M$ to slip the market with nintendo. Mario kinda suck after like 20 years of buisness, and M$ is not the godd idea, you try windows?
oh, and SHUT UP to who's talking about "sony is not a good boy"!!! man this is harassing, people knowing nothing about buisness thinking everybody is clean and gentle!! wtf, open your eyes!!! and anyway only one out of 8 patents passed!
The first protable console to have to screens was made by nintendo in the 80's playing games like game and watch and it had the exact same physical appearance tahn the DS , nintendo doesn't talk about it cause it was a failure , and the first portable console with touch screen was the other failure known as game.com by tiger electronics which din't sell well cause they had no credit in gaming industry , but nintendo has found out that if they use the name gameboy for any protable crap they wanna release it will torn out well. Anyways what do I think of what sony did , every company does it , this is something normal , and to the guy who said how can sony have so much money if they keep losing? , the answer is that they make around 1.5 billion dollars clean , loses of hardware have already been substracted and employee payment and taxes too. If not they would make like 3 billion per year lol.
i hate to generalise, but it's really annoying that this goddamn american past-time of suing everyone is starting to piss me right off...
if they're not american, and are in fact english then i'm a bit of a tit aren't i?! but i'm willing to take that risk.
i agree, 'business ethics' is an oxymoron.
i hate the idea that you can patent a semiconductor, or trademark 'you're fired' or patent an asymmetrical weight.
yeah, microsoft are good, they stole from immersion, but paid them off as immersion were only asking 40million usd. they wanted 600million usd from sony, so a 90million usd bill is an improvement, but still totally unjustified.
it's stupid, this bloody system of being able to patent any tiny little stupid idea... 'theft' is a fact of life, and if it means we get 3 good consoles all using the good ideas (it seems analogue sticks are just like joysticks but smaller, and they were around way before n64).
you'd seriously rather the days of the saturn, ps1 and n64 were back? with nintendo foolishly using cartridges, sony only have digital dpad, and sega (or perhaps the newbies, microsoft) not having any innovation whatsoever (apart from bsod!)
shut up about 'sony are lamers' etc, the whole legal issues with these patents are stupid and pointless... it is just small companies who can't be arsed to work for a living trying to milk larger companies for money. haven't microsoft been sued by multiple places with respect to windows and internet explorer etc? it always happens and i believe the system should change.
All the M$ fanboy how did M$ started. By stealing thats how.
"Two young hackers were intrigued by the Altair, having seen the article in Popular Electronics. They decided on their own that the Altair needed software and took it upon themselves to contact MITS owner Ed Roberts and offer to provide him with a BASIC which would run on the Altair. BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) had originally been developed in 1963 by Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny, members of the Dartmouth mathematics department. BASIC was designed to provide an interactive, easy method for upcoming computer scientists to program computers. It allowed the usage of statements such as print "hello" or let b=10. It would be a great boost for the Altair if BASIC were available, so Robert's agreed to pay for it if it worked. The two young hackers worked feverishly and finished just in time to present it to Roberts. It was a success. The two young hackers? They were William Gates and Paul Allen. They later went on to form Microsoft and produce BASIC and operating systems for various machines."
Analog sticks are not just like joy sticks. Analog is variable whereas joy sticks are on or off.
Also Nintendo wasn't the first to use cartridges. They even made there console out of plastic. Nintendo copied alot of things from consoles before them and so did Sega.
Who cares really as long as it benefits you and me.
Sony started selling the Walkman in 1979, and in 1980 began negotiating with Mr. Pavel, who was seeking a royalty fee. The company agreed in 1986 to a limited fee arrangement covering sales only in Germany, and then for only a few models.
So in 1989 he began new proceedings, this time in British courts, that dragged on and on, eating up his limited financial resources.
At one point, Mr. Pavel said, he owed his lawyer hundreds of thousands of dollars and was being followed by private detectives and countersued by Sony. "They had frozen all my assets, I couldn't use checks or credit cards," and the outlook for him was grim.
In 1996, the case was dismissed, leaving Mr. Pavel with more than $3 million in court costs to pay.
But he persisted, warning Sony that he would file new suits in every country where he had patented his invention, and in 2003, after another round of negotiations, the company agreed to settle out of court.
Mr. Pavel declined to say how much Sony was obliged to pay him, citing a confidentiality clause. But European press accounts said Mr. Pavel had received a cash settlement for damages in the low eight figures and was now also receiving royalties on some Walkman sales.
THESE days, Mr. Pavel divides his time between Italy and Brazil, and once again considers himself primarily a philosopher. But he is also using some of his money to develop an invention he calls a dreamkit, which he describes as a "hand-held, personal, multimedia, sense-extension device," and to indulge his unflagging interest in music.
Recently, he has been promoting the career of Altamiro Carrilho, a flutist whom he regards as the greatest living Brazilian musician. He is also financing a project that he describes as the complete discography of every record ever released in Brazil.
Some of his friends have suggested he might have a case against the manufacturers of MP3 players, reasoning that those devices are a direct descendant of the Walkman. Mr. Pavel said that while he saw a kinship, he was not eager to take on another long legal battle.
"I have known other inventors in similar predicaments and most of them become that story, which is the most tragic, sad and melancholic thing that can happen," he said. "Somebody becomes a lawsuit, he loses all interest in other things and deals only with the lawsuit. Nobody ever said I was obsessed. I kept my other interests alive, in philosophy and music and literature."
"I didn't have time to pursue them, but now I have reconquered my time," he continued. "So, no, I'm not interested anymore in patents or legal fights or anything like that. I don't want to be reduced to the label of being the inventor of the Walkman."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/international/americas/17pavel.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=c5f6f6d99731e2a5&ex=1292475600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I don't think that has anything to do with this case at all.
It's sony style
Your style is clearly retarded.
Actually Apple bought it from Xerox, they didn't just take it (I agree, stupid move by Xerox)
As for MS and Apple's DOS. What happened was this:
Once Apple got DOS working and all, and got into adding more things into it, Bill Gates came up with a supposed "plan". He decided to bascailly infiltrate Apple. He went to Steve Jobs, asked him if he could have a job working with him (he some how convinced him, and Steve Jobs agreed). He was hired somewhere in software development and was in charge of making sure there were no bugs or anything in DOS. this is when Gates took DOS home (for supposedly testing it as he was supposed to), and edditted a few codes here and there and slapped MS in front of it. Jobs was extremely stupid for even talking to Gates, and basically screwed himself over, but Gates did steal DOS.
I accept! Allen and I will help sony beat these money hungry patent gobblers if it's the last thing we do!
Go to;
www.IBelieveInTheToothFairy.com
Why would they want a jury trial, there pissing off most of their customers, but again these are the faults of such huge corporations. Just like the riaa and goverment and even the movie and music coporations, labels.
They forget there customers are us ; ) and we should make them know this.
It's true what #43 says , but apple can't dop anything about it now , it's past history , and they did not have proof at that time.
how closed mined are you? they havent forgotten about us the customers. If they did then wed be sitting in stagnant nintendo style technical evolution(look at gb). Sony has pushed the gaming industry to where it is today, ps1 to ps2 was a huge leap. If sony didnt listen to the customers, we wouldnt have the old contoller design back, we wouldnt be using a larger storage medium (more devs but yeah), we wouldnt have harddrives, wireless controllers, and ect standard. They also given us the psp we asked for a more powerful handheld for ages from nintendo and they keep doing minor things to theirs each with flaws (new dslites have cracks froming in at the hinges already). PSP we brick ours with pushing its possibilities but thats our fault. Anyone lose the ability to user ther R shoulder button on their psp yet like on the gba and gbasp? Give sony another 5-10 years in the lead and maybe theyll forget about us. But fro now unlike microsoft that takes our thoughts and tell us their crap then puts them in claiming it their own. Or nintendo rehashing the same franchises, just now coming off their high horse and trying to pull in third party devs after 2 gens, and a slowly evloving gb with flaws in every one so youll by a better one.
I really hope closed mined individuals arnt in the jury when sony is in court with this, along with all the bandwagon sony bashers who convieniently forget what sony has given. nintendo nostalgia aside, microsoft hating aside, they could have done alot more with their consoles but have played it safe almost every time so far.