craig-thorner
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Sony to never stop getting sued for rumble technology
It's been more than two years since Immersion and Sony settled their kerfluffle over the latter party's infringement on the former's "haptic feedback" (rumble) technology. However, Sony's not quite out of the woods yet -- it's currently the subject of yet another civil suit, filed this time by Craig Thorner, an engineer who also held a number of patents relating to haptic feedback.Brace yourselves -- this gets confusing. After its settlement with Sony, Immersion was set to take on Performance Designed Products (PDP) for similar rumble-yoinking reasons. PDP contacted Thorner for some pre-litigious preparation. They negotiated terms for the licensing of his patents -- though Thorner used the same lawyers who represented Sony to help with said negotiation. His complaint is that these lawyers got him unfavorable results in the negotiation, including low royalty payments, and the inclusion of a provision that would grant a patent license to Sony.So, technically, Sony's getting sued for patent infringement and legal malpractice. Hopefully, no suspected shady dealings will go down in this case. We'd hate to see Sony get stuck in some sort of inescapable infinite lawsuit loop.Update: Turns out we've already turned your attention to this intense legal showdown. Consider this a helpful accidental reminder!
Sony sued for cheating man out of rumble patents
Two years after we thought it was all over, it sounds like the saga of Sony, Immersion, and the rumblin' DualShock has yet another chapter: a New Jersey electrical engineer named Craig Thorner is now suing Sony and its attorneys, claiming that he was more or less duped out of one of his patents in a shady deal designed to help Sony and PDP/Electrosource beat Immersion's cases against them. Oh yeah, it's a tangled mess -- Thorner first signed over his patent to Immersion, hoping to score a little slice of royalty pie when the lawsuit settled, but then took it back when he decided Immersion wasn't pursuing it hard enough and signed it over to PDP/Electrosource, who promised him $150,000. So where does Sony come in? Thorner says PDP and Sony were teamed up to beat Immersion, and that Sony was secretly the one licensing the patent but trying to remain out of the picture to keep the price down -- and he's got proof, in the form of a $150,000 wire transfer between the two companies. Not only that, but Sony's attorneys apparently promised Thorner that they could "wear two hats" during negotiations and represent both him and Sony, which is ten kinds of shady. You can guess what happened next: Sony lost, PDP settled, and Immersion sued Thorner for breaking his agreement -- and Sony's attorneys didn't help him defend the lawsuit. Did we say ten kinds of shady? Eleven kinds. Of course, it's doubtful that Thorner is totally innocent here, so it'll be interesting to see how Sony responds, but at this point we're treating the DualShock 3 as a miracle of nature and leaving it at that. [Via Joystiq]Read - GamePolitics article (with PDF of the complaint)Read - Law.com article
N.J. inventor says Sony ripped him off, tricked him out of cash
OK, you know we have little tolerance for anything that's more legally demanding than Phoenix Wright, so just try to hang in there with us. Inventor Craig Thorner has filed suit against Sony, saying that the company and a handful of lawyers tricked him out of some money he could have received for patents he owned on rumble technology.To put it as simply as possible: Thorner had some patents that both Sony and Immersion tried to get during their legal squabbling. Thinking it might net him some cash, Thorner licensed his patents to Immersion, which won its case against Sony. Immersion then went after PDP/Electro Source, which also licensed Thorner's patents after he believed his deal with Immersion expired. But (stick with us!) Sony and PDP/Electro Source had teamed up, and Thorner alleges that he wasn't informed of the deal, which made him license his patents to PDP for much less than he could have had he known (that's the "tricked him out of cash" part).God, that was exhausting. If you want even more detail (if not necessarily a better understanding) of the case you can read GamePolitics' full piece here.
