A US District Court judge has ruled in favor of PlayStation in a patent infringement lawsuit worth $500 million involving controller technology.
The lawsuit, filed by Genuine Enabling Technology (GET) against Sony Corporation in 2017, alleged that the communication technology used by Sony’s PlayStation console and controller violated GET’s “730 Patent, entitled ‘Method and Apparatus for Producing a Combined Data Stream and Recovering Therefrom the Respective User Input Stream and at Least One Input Signal.”
GET highlighted that Sony’s controllers use a dual-frequency transmission method, where button inputs were sent on a ‘slow-varying’ frequency and motion control inputs on a higher frequency. The company claimed that prior to its patented solution outlined in the ‘730 Patent, no device could receive both signals concurrently. In response, Sony contended that GET’s evidence didn’t sufficiently demonstrate structural equivalence between the relevant component in Sony’s controllers and the technical diagrams described in GET’s patent.
The judge’s Memorandum Opinion stated that GET failed to present enough evidence to challenge Sony’s assertion. Consequently, the judge granted Sony’s motion for a summary judgment of non-infringement, closing the case.
Genuine Enabling Technology had also filed a lawsuit against Nintendo for allegedly infringing upon the same patent. In a similar legal battle, the District Court judge initially ruled in favor of Nintendo in 2020. However, this decision was overturned by the US Court of Appeals in 2022, and the case is still pending a verdict.
Sony’s current PlayStation controller, The PlayStation 5’s DualSense, builds upon the design and features of its predecessor, the DualShock 4, with input from game designers and players. It features a larger, rounder, and heavier design compared to the DualShock 4, with the light bar relocated to the edges of the touchpad. The “Share” button has been replaced with “Create,” emphasizing content creation and sharing. Prominent advancements include vibrotactile haptic feedback through integrated voice coil actuators and adaptive triggers with force feedback provided by two DC rotary motors.
