Saturday, January 13th 2007

Fenner Investments sues Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo for infringing on it's joystick patent

Fenner Investments sues Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo for infringing on its joystick

It sounds too nonsensical to be true, but Texas-based Fenner Investments sued all three console manufacturers for infringing their copyright on a "low-voltage joystick port interface" (patent number 6,297,751). The patent basically states:
The joystick port interface according the present invention is 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.
If Fenner wins the lawsuits, then they will succeed in banning all three consoles from market, as they are seeking damages and an injunction against the consoles.
Source: Gamasutra
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29 Comments on Fenner Investments sues Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo for infringing on it's joystick patent

#26
Carcenomy
Not the joystick itself, the way the joystick connects. The 'low power joystick port', which essentially means likes of the Xbox's USB ports or what have you.
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#27
Unregistered
This is all very irrelevent. If there is any slight chance of a win from Fenner they will be bought out by MS/Sony/Nintendo.... Stupid really..
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#28
XooM
first off, MSonyTendo can get off just because fenner was doing nothing with this patent and had patented an existing, commonplace technology, which is about as ludicrous if i went and patented binary and sued IBM, Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, and so forth over it.

Also... ka-ka-ka-COUNTERSUED!!!! (well, they will be.)
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#29
tkpenalty
XooMfirst off, MSonyTendo can get off just because fenner was doing nothing with this patent and had patented an existing, commonplace technology, which is about as ludicrous if i went and patented binary and sued IBM, Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, and so forth over it.

Also... ka-ka-ka-COUNTERSUED!!!! (well, they will be.)
Suing Microsoft is funny though... like one of the most powerful corporations in the world VS some tiny company that is a patent hog. Seriously, MSonyTendo should all sue them for damages against them.
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