This Time Immersion Loses Lawsuit to Microsoft

[The 1 2 P]

What comes around goes around. Immersion(holders of several patents for force feedback technologies) lost their year plus legal battle to Microsoft and was forced to pay major coin(to the tune of roughly $21 million). Heres the technical jargon: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/immersion-and-microsoft-settle-litigation/made%20a%20claim

The funny thing about this case is that Sony(of all people) helped Microsoft achieve this win. Because of a clause in their out of court settlement(for having rumble in the XBox controllers) from 2003, Immersion would have to pay Microsoft a certain amount of money if Immersion eventually settled their lawsuit with Sony based on the same rumble(in the Dualshock controllers) patent infringement. Last year Sony and Immersion settled, Immersion refused to pay Microsoft and thus got owned in the judicial system. Immersion--you got served:beaten:

[exit]

Just shows what can happen when you get greedy.

[Nature Boy]

Just shows what can happen when you get greedy.

They are only being forced to play what they had originally said they would pay to MS should Sony settle.

According to the links, they thought that because Sony's payment to them wasn't technically a 'settlement' due to the legalese, they wouldn't have to pay up to MS.

It's totally the kind of stuff that makes you sick though. I've got no issue with Immersion fighting for it's copyrights. When they try to finangle their way out of settlements I totally lose respect for them.

[Ze_ro]

Immersion is a parasite on the video game industry, sitting on their asses doing nothing but raking in royalty checks for "inventing" obvious technology. It's good to see them get a spanking for once.

--Zero