Judge rules in Sony's favour in $500m controller lawsuit
eurogamer.netSony has successfully won a patent infringement lawsuit in which it was being sued for $500m, after a US District Court judge ruled in the PlayStation company's favour.
The lawsuit was based on Sony's controller-to-console communication method, with Genuine Enabling Technology — a company with a history of lawsuits over technology patents — seeking $500m in damages. GET initially filed a complaint against the company back in 2017, claiming Sony had infringed on its patent.
Specifically, this patent was entitled 'Method and Apparatus for Producing a Combined Data Stream and Recovering Therefrom the Respective User Input Stream and at Least One Input Signal'.
To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings Newscast: Behind the headlines of GDC, a cautious sense of hope.Watch on YouTubeSony subsequently said the company had not given enough evidence to support its claims that a component in its PlayStation controllers was «structurally equivalent» to diagrams featured in GET's patent.
Now, a judge has ruled in favour of Sony, as reported by Eurogamer's sister-site GamesIndustry.biz. In a Memorandum Opinion seen by GI.biz, earlier this week the judge in question said GET had «failed to raise a dispute of fact». As a result of this finding, they granted the platform holder's request for a summary judgement of non-infringement, declaring the case closed.
As GI.biz noted, this is not the first time GET has tried to file this kind of lawsuit.
It has also filed a similar complaint against Nintendo. Initially, a judge ruled in favour of Nintendo, however the Court of Appeals reversed this decision back in 2022. As such, this particular lawsuit is still ongoing.
Read more on eurogamer.net
