Ubisoft, Sony, EA and Disney settle voice recognition lawsuit
One year after a being sued for allegedly infringing on a voice recognition technology patent, publishers Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Disney Interactive Studios have decided to settle the matter out of court, according to Gamasutra.
On November 10th, 2009, Bareis Technologies, LLC filed a lawsuit claiming titles such as SOCOM, Tom Clancy's EndWar and NASCAR and Phonics Quest, infringed on a 1996 patent that outlined a process of speech recognition templates to be present on optical disks in order to access specific information and issue commands for control purposes. Originally, Bareis Technologies' patent was largely targeted towards accessing specific music tracks on audio CDs, making no mention of the concept being used to control game functions.
According to the report, the U.S. District Court's Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division approved a motion applied by all defendants in the claim requesting a mutual dismissal on April 21, 2010. That, in turn, dismissed all counterclaims made in the process. The terms of the settlement were not revealed, although the court documents obtained by Gamasutra state all parties will pay their own legal fees.
