AfterDawn: News

US University sues Sony over PS2 technology

The University of Wisconsin Madison has file a suit agains Sony and Toshiba. They claim that PlayStation 2's Emotion Engine infringes an old university patent which has been filed back in 1986. Little information about the patent is available for us at the moment. The gameindustry.biz reports the following:

The PlayStation 2 is based on a MIPS processing core with custom extensions added to it to improve the efficiency of the console. This unit is known as the "EE Core" - while Emotion Engine is a term used to describe this component and several others which are integrated onto a single chip and form the heart of the console's processing power.

This is a very interesting case, since it's an academic institution vs. two consumer electronics giants. If the suit holds, it will be interesting to see how much money Sony is has to use for settling the case with the university.

Source: Gameindustry.biz

Written by: Lasse Penttinen @ 27 Oct 2003 7:30

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• 9 comments

• #afonic

  Well Playstation 2 uses a patent from 1986 ?
  This university must be crazy!
  

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  27.10.2003 12:52 #1

• alxdotnet

  Very interesting...certainly says a lot about PS2's claim to use advanced, cutting-edge technology.
  I can't wait to see what will happen.
  

  Comp 1: Dell Inspiron P4 2.4Ghz / 512 MB RAM with 24x CD-RW and Firewire In, SVideo Out running XP Pro
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  27.10.2003 13:13 #2

• Ketola

  Well.. Tons of CPU technologies still used nowadays have been invented (and patented) as early as the 70's, so I wouldn't wonder if some otpimization or pipeline patent would apply to the EE. NEC and Toshiba don't own all the MIPS patents. At least as far as I know.
  
  

  Jari Ketola
  Administrator
  http://www.AfterDawn.com
  

  27.10.2003 13:19 #3

• deester1

  its not widely known but a lot of the software and architecture that computers(including consols)was developed ages ago,the problem these developers have is waiting for the hardware to catch up in terms of technology...games programers fight a constant battle to squeeze the most out of the available hard ware without making the game run like a muffin! given realastic hardware most programers will tell you that photorealistic video games are a reality now..the problem is the hardware that they are being developed on costs hundreds of thousands of pounds..so marketing a game of that complexity wouldnt have any point cuase maybe 3 people in the world could afford the machine to run it on.....i wouldnt be suprised if sony did "leech" some part of the ps2 engine from somewhere..and id be happy to see them take a fall..after all sony is one of the leading companies pushing pay to play gaming and its been screwing the public on the cost of playstation games for nearly a decade!!!

  28.10.2003 08:24 #4

• sundragon

  what a joke, there probably talking about a patent that could apply to anything.

  28.10.2003 09:15 #5

• Ketola

  Quote:what a joke, there probably talking about a patent that could apply to anything.Probably not. Patents exist for techniques required for developing a quantum processor. Even though technology to produce such processors does not exist, it doesn't mean that the patents would be invalid, when such technologies are invented. You don't always have to patent an existing product. You can just patent the idea for creating a product.
  
  

  Jari Ketola
  Administrator
  http://www.AfterDawn.com
  

  28.10.2003 09:36 #6

• pede

  actually, you cant patent an idea. you patent a specific implementation of an idea
  
  however, this implemetation does not necessarily need to have technology ready to build a practical implementation. so a specified method is ususally enough, even though one can't build a functioning model for a long time.
  

  28.10.2003 11:21 #7

• alxdotnet

  In other words, you can patent a good diagram?
  

  Comp 1: Dell Inspiron P4 2.4Ghz / 512 MB RAM with 24x CD-RW and Firewire In, SVideo Out running XP Pro
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  29.10.2003 09:56 #8

• deester1

  you can even patent a theory providing you can back it up with mathmatical proof!for instance the theory behind super conductors was patented years ago but only now are they being developed.sooner or later a pc with a nitrogen cooling system will be run by a super powerfull super conducting processor,or someone will find a way to make super conducting alloys work at room temprature.

  29.10.2003 10:50 #9