Immersion Corporation have a history of taking on companies and winning, with Valve being the latest in the firing line over Immersion's patents. The patents involved are 7,336,260, 8,749,507, 9,430,042, 9,116,546, 10,627,907, 10,665,067, and 11,175,738.
They're pretty notorious for this going after Xiaomi, Meta (Facebook), Sony, Microsoft and more in the past. Most companies just seem to partner up with them now and license their stuff.
From the press release:
“Immersion and its employees have worked diligently for almost 30 years to invent innovative haptic technologies that allow people to use their sense of touch to engage with products and experience the digital world around them. Our intellectual property is relevant to many of the most important and cutting-edge ways in which haptic technology is and can be deployed, and, in the case of AR/VR experiences, haptics is crucial to an immersive user experience,” said Eric Singer, Chairman and CEO.
“While we are pleased to see that Valve recognizes the value of haptics and has adopted our haptic technology in its handheld video game and AR/VR systems as part of its effort to generate revenue streams through the sales of hardware, games and other virtual assets, and advertisements, it is important for us to protect our business against infringement of our intellectual property to preserve the investments that we have made in our technology,” added Mr. Singer. “We must ensure that our intellectual property is recognized as a necessary feature in the handheld video game and emerging AR/VR markets, even when litigation becomes necessary.”
I have reached out to Valve Press, to see if they have any statement to share on this.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: PenglingA fellow GOL'er showed me this a couple of days ago: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/save-dollardollardollar-on-the-rog-ally-by-resetting-and-trading-in-your-steam-deck-gaming-handheld/ar-AA1b4WkaI hoped that Microsoft would change. But it seems I do have to migrate anything on github away from github as Microsoft still seems to be this incredible FUD poison. They literally made hell for me for 30 years starting with their crap that they called operating system. As a software developer I ended up maintaining client pc's because of this CRAP OS instead of delivering software that tracks pollution in the ground, in that time rather unique.
How convenient!
Then they started to shit FUD all over us Linux users, while I as an agnostic mostly unix type user needed Unix and Linux systems due to severe lack of working compilers from and for Microsoft platforms.
The more I stepped away from that terrible microsoft world, the harder they began to scream.
In hindsight: a linux system would have cut down development time by years and it would still work today. But the world changed into a world were you had to keep your network open to crap, despite microsoft trying hard to monopolize networking by staying away from tcp/ip.
f*ck... I need to stop ranting.
But even now: I setup incredible cloud systems that are capable of running loads of vms and containers, yet these windows developers can not think any further than everything and all needs to be running on the sql server vm and hence the sql server vm needs to have *all* resources of the cloud and then they are angry because they did nothing to prevent crap filling the disks and they can't reindex the tables now and are angry that despite them filling all of the cloud they can not quickly order some usb disk to attach to the server so they can do backups.
Really the mind of most windows developers are so constrained because they never are able to venture outside their desktop.
The difference between "The Network is the Computer" and "My desktop is the Computer".
Sh*t I ranted again. 30 years of microsoft fud.
And of course they wait two years to sue so that the 'damage' is worthwhile. Disgusting parasites...
Quoting: PenglingA fellow GOL'er showed me this a couple of days ago: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/save-dollardollardollar-on-the-rog-ally-by-resetting-and-trading-in-your-steam-deck-gaming-handheld/ar-AA1b4Wka
Am I the only one that thinks that the headline sounds like a typical scam email? “Save $$$ on…” – delete.
slaapliedje May 18, 2023
Quoting: elmapulthos *** holes are still implying you cant use GFN on a steam deck.Ha, Geforce Now even works on the Atari VCS...
Valve should also remove haptic modules from their products, they add nothing of value.
Last edited by thykr on 18 May 2023 at 4:33 pm UTC
Quoting: SethMThis seems slightly iffy, but I'm sure it will work itself out. And worse case, Valve will probably have to pay a fine, which, let's be honest, isn't really going to hurt them.
this is a civil case so there will be no fines, if Valve is deemed guilty then they will have to pay whatever that Immersion says is their license fee for every single unit of Steam Decks sold. It could easily be billions.
Immersion also want the court to forbid Valve from selling more Steam Decks and Index:es.
Last edited by F.Ultra on 18 May 2023 at 6:55 pm UTC
Mohandevir May 18, 2023
Quoting: F.UltraImmersion also want the court to forbid Valve from selling more Steam Decks and Index:es.
There. You have it. Everything happens at the same time. Asus releases the Ally with a big marketing push from Asus and Microsoft for a garbage experience handheld and Immersion patent trolls Valve to stop them from selling the Steam Deck. You'll tell me it's not all coordinated?
They know it's impossible to beat the Steam Deck. Microsoft wants to burry it and probably kill the handheld market.
Afterall, for MS, gaming = Xbox, not PC.
That's what I think.
Edit: If they succeed in killing the Steam Deck, the Ally II will not be sold at 700$ and it's going to be the end of handhelds. They are probably selling it at a loss because of M$ money.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 18 May 2023 at 10:19 pm UTC
Quoting: F.UltraImmersion also want the court to forbid Valve from selling more Steam Decks and Index:es.They want Valve to be prohibited unless they pay the tithe. Some fee on the units they've sold to date is much less attractive than the fee on the (15? maybe?) millions of future units, plus the fees on Deck 2/Index 2/Controller 2 in the future. They want to just kick back and collect rent; the threat of an injunction is the stick to make everyone get a licence.
slaapliedje May 19, 2023
Quoting: CatKillerThis is where I'm a firm believer that the patent system needs to be changed so that if you are not making a physical product based upon a patent you have filed away, then you lose claims to that patent and it becomes public domain. It's that way for Trademarks, basically.Quoting: F.UltraImmersion also want the court to forbid Valve from selling more Steam Decks and Index:es.They want Valve to be prohibited unless they pay the tithe. Some fee on the units they've sold to date is much less attractive than the fee on the (15? maybe?) millions of future units, plus the fees on Deck 2/Index 2/Controller 2 in the future. They want to just kick back and collect rent; the threat of an injunction is the stick to make everyone get a licence.
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