by Playfuls Staff |
11th January 2007
The big trio of game console makers, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, is facing a patent infringement lawsuit from a patent holding company for the way they designed their controllers.[more]
Fenner Investments, a Richardson-Texas based company, is accusing Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo of infringing its patent concerning the “low-voltage joystick port interface.”
The joystick port interface includes an integrated circuit receiving an analog joystick position measurement signal and outputting a digital pulse signal to a processor which signifies a joystick coordinate value. The integrated circuit includes a pulse generator and a bidirectional buffer circuit. The bidirectional buffer circuit receives the analog joystick position measurement signal and selectively discharges an RC network capacitor which provides this analog measurement. This implementation provides a joystick port which uses low-voltage CMOS VLSI structures which can interface a conventional high-voltage joystick with the processor.
If you had any trouble in understanding the previous paragraph, you should know that what the low voltage interface is doing is to translate your button presses to on screen actions.
According to the text of the lawsuit, “Each of the Defendants’ acts of infringement has caused damage to Fenner, and Fenner is entitled to recover from each Defendant the damages sustained by Fenner as a result of their individual wrongful acts in an amount subject to proof at trial. Each of the Defendants’ infringement of Fenner’s exclusive rights under the ‘751 Patent will continue to damage Fenner’s business, causing irreparable harm, for which there is no adequate remedy at law, unless it is enjoined by this Court.”
Neither of the companies have issued a statement regarding the suit, but it should be pointed out that last year, Fenner attempted a similar suit, this time against a number of wireless industry companies including Alcatel, Nokia and Cisco regarding another patent, described as "a method and apparatus for managing a communications network for mobile users." The suit against Alcatel was dismissed in May, and a motion to compel financial information from Juniper was denied in July.
