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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games Hardware

Sony Sued By University Over PS2 Chip 40

Posted by simoniker from the full-recall-expected-soon dept.
Mike Hawk writes "Cry me a river! Sony is being sued over the creation of its 'Emotion Engine' PlayStation 2 chip. The University of Wisconsin (Madison) has filed the suit claiming the "EE Core" violates a 16 year old U-Dub patent. And you guys have been gaming with 16 year old technology the whole time - those PS2 jaggies make perfect sense now..." Since this story broke on Friday, a CNET News article has added a little more information, quoting a University spokesman as saying the patent involves "advanced chipmaking technologies and has been licensed by a number of technology companies", but not Sony or the chip's co-creator, Toshiba.
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Sony Sued By University Over PS2 Chip More

Sony Sued By University Over PS2 Chip

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  • Nice Timing for a lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mrshowtime ( 562809 ) * on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @03:58AM (#7326577)
    Gee, right after Sony sells it's 60 millionth PS2, this University finally figures out that Sony "Stole" their (ancient) technology. Sounds awfully fishy to me.

    • Re:Nice Timing for a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @04:03AM (#7326584) Homepage Journal
      "Gee, right after Sony sells it's 60 millionth PS2, this University finally figures out that Sony "Stole" their (ancient) technology. Sounds awfully fishy to me."

      Coincidently, Sony recently changed their manufacturing process to make the systems cheaper. I couldn't tell you if that's what sparked the suit or not, but I can tell you that anything smells fishy when you are missing a good deal of detail like we are right now with this story. It's too vague.

  • "Good Faith" - uhhuh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @04:16AM (#7326620) Homepage Journal
    "We hope the lawsuit will encourage them to bargain in good faith,"
    How very SCO of you.
  • This isn't like a soccer mom trying to cash in on frivuolous lawsuit #235 of the week, this is an actual university, and the entire board of directors must have legitimate concern to sue.

    Perhaps they have a case.
    • Perhaps.

      But why have they waited for so long? The PS2's been out for a couple years now, and the advertising/hype about the "Emotion Engine" was circulating way before the console was even released.

      This just seems like another in a long line of "Turn a blind eye until we know how much we can sue them for" infringement suits. If (if!) infringement was involved, why wait until a few years later? Going for them early might not yield as much in damages, but surely infringement is infringement whether they mak
      • From the news articles, the patent is not on the content of the Emotion Engine, but on how the chip is fabricated. I don't recall Sony ever advertising anything about it's new age fabrication methods...

        Please correct me if i'm wrong
    • This isn't like a soccer mom trying to cash in on frivuolous lawsuit #235 of the week, this is an actual university, and the entire board of directors must have legitimate concern to sue.

      Translation:
      This is the entire board of directors of an actual university trying to cash in on frivuolous [sic] lawsuit #235 of the week.
    • There's a common cause that both large organizations and inviduals share alike when it comes to lawsuits. From soccer mom to university... that common cause is money. And even with a board of directors, the discussion is probably not so much as "do you think we're in the right to sue," as "do you think we'll win/profit?"

      Money is a great motivator in the legal world

  • Offtopic nitpick (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Um, "U-Dub" is what people call the University of Washington. I don't recall anyone ever calling it that while at the University of Wisconsin.

  • Question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:23AM (#7327420)
    Uh, why are universities patenting their research? Aren't they supposed to be releasing info for public use?

    That is partially a rhetorical question, and my partial answer is that federal cuts have probably reduced grants/funds to the point that universities must (and indeed they have long since started to) patent and sell their research, sometimes with tacit partnership with industry with specific products in mind, as opposed to being "pure" research.

    I'm not against the public, businesses included, profiting from university research, I'm just sort of skeptical of universities getting patents (anathema to the whole purpose of universities), and then licensing them to a select few that pay enough. Otherwise our universities just become off-site research labs for specific companies (i.e. the ones with the money).
    • Duh, my bad! In this case the company, Sony, is foreign, so the argument may not be as applicable.
    • Otherwise our universities just become off-site research labs for specific companies (i.e. the ones with the money).

      They are. Not all research grants come from the government (heck, even the government does classified work that can't be allowed out).

      People tend to give grants with strings attached. Don't like it? You can push for more NSF/DoD funding (DoD for computer science).
      • People tend to give grants with strings attached.

        Shouldn't, then, they be the ones with the patents? and, research done on money without such strings shouldn't be patented at all... basically (in grandparent post's opinion) a university should never hold a patent for itself

      • Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)

        by xenocide2 ( 231786 )
        Actually, NSF does ocasionally offer grants to CS professors. One of my professors is part of the NSF funded Open Source Quality project. Several others have been awarded NSF grants as well. In fact, few have research directly for the DoD. A couple do have grants from popular defense contractors, like Honeywell, and I presume there are some strings attached.

    • Re:Question (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bubblewrapgrl ( 189933 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @12:39PM (#7329197)
      I don't know about other schools, but UW-Madison has been patenting the research of professors and other researchers on campus since 1925. There is a private, non-profit organization called the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Basically, they hold patents and license them out. The money that is collected is used to fund the university and other research on campus.

      Check out http://www.warf.ws for more information.
  • *cries how could my college do this to me...

    • So do I (Score:2, Informative)

      by kninja ( 121603 )
      So do I.

      Our University gets money from things like this, and that is a good thing. If companies didn't have to license patents from WARF, do you think that they would donate money to the university for more research? I'm not optimistic that they would. This is a way to fund more research, which in turn attracts more top talent to Wisconsin (Madtown, I don't know where the U-Dub came from), making it a better school.

      If you work in a lab here and get a patent through warf, the school gets something like 80%
      • Little offtopic (sorry), but you want to get a soda or something and discuss this? The alumni association that admins the patents is just near my place. Anyone that lives near Madison, come in.
    • Yeah I go to Madison as well. I guess this is just what happens when we need to let out anger about our football team getting rocked =P

  • U-Dub (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "U-Dub" is University of Washington. University of Wisconsin is "U-Double-U".

    And it's probably The Foundation that's doing this. Those lawyers are hated by most of the university, especially the faculty who's ideas are stolen and exploited. The Foundation made a killing off synthetic BGH. It's actually what started this whole university-patent thing. Before that universities research was to benifit society, not for quick cash.

  • In 1820, it may have taken 20 years to get a headstart in fields like cotton ginning and steam-shipping. Now, 20 years is 5 product lifetimes. I think hardware patents should be 5 years, and 3 years for software/business method type patents.

    Companies that truly innovate will still have plenty of time to exploit their advantage in the market (witness Palm or Amazon - you can build a real advantage in a short space of time). Entities that want to sit on patents will be SOL (that's not Sony of Latvia).

    The
  • Is named Mike Hawk? Umm... Think about that for a second. Try saying it out loud. Mike Hawk. Hmm. No, nothing fishy there.
    • Yes, that is the moniker I chose for slashdot. Because it is funny. For me it is a reference to a practical joke played by Consolidated Skateboards when they announced that they had signed Tony Hawk's brother Mike to the team. This actually went largely unnoticed for a while. It still makes me smile. Did it make you smile?

      Your handle there is "dafoomie". This is more credible to you? The other random "leetd00d47" or "potman420" names are? The name Mike Hawk is clearly a joke, and to me a funny on
      • My name is no more valid than anyones. I'm simply pointing out that you have a name that Bart Simpson would have Moe call out at his bar if it weren't too vulgar. It being funny is the only reason I said anything. The story is higher brow than most of the stuff there, and probably should have made the main page. But a story may have less credibility if its submitted by Seymour Butts or I.P. Freely. Nothing against you personally. I don't personally have a problem with it. But that, combined with your

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