Immersion Corporation of San Jose, CA holds 142 US patents, nearly all of which are related to haptic human-computer interfaces.

From a conference call for Immersion shareholders: The case involved Immersion's allegation that Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. (SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. (SCEI, the Japanese parent of SCEA) infringed 16 claims in
two of our patents, U.S. Patent Number 6,275,213 and 6,424,333, relating to vibro-tactile technologies. The case was filed on February 11, 2002 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case has been pending before United States District Judge Claudia Wilken.

It is worth noting that Microsoft was also named in this case on claims that the Xbox also infringed; they settled out of court.

Here's 6,275,213. It's interesting to note that this isn't even their patent, originally. It was assigned to a company named Virtual Technologies, out of Palo Alto.

Tactile feedback man-machine interface device

Abstract: A man-machine interface which provides tactile feedback to various sensing body parts is disclosed. The device employs one or more vibrotactile units, where each unit comprises a mass and a mass-moving actuator. As the mass is accelerated by the mass-moving actuator, the entire vibrotactile unit vibrates. Thus, the vibrotactile unit transmits a vibratory stimulus to the sensing body part to which it is affixed. The vibrotactile unit may be used in conjunction with a spatial placement sensing device which measures the spatial placement of a measured body part. A computing device uses the spatial placement of the measured body part to determine the desired vibratory stimulus to be provided by the vibrotactile unit. In this manner, the computing device may control the level of vibratory feedback perceived by the corresponding sensing body part in response to the motion of the measured body part. The sensing body part and the measured body part may be separate or the same body part.

U.S. Patent 6,424,333 is a continuation application of prior U.S. application Ser. No. 09/561,782, filed on May 1, 2000 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,213, in the name of Marc Tremblay, et al., which is a continuation of prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/066,608, filed on Apr. 24, 1998 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,088,017, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/565,102, filed Nov. 30, 1995, abandoned; and all of which are incorporated herein by reference.

From a law.com article in September 2004, here's a description of the alleged infringement:

He said the PlayStation technology in dispute "is a very small subset of vibrations" that occur in a joystick during a small number of events per game.

For example, he said, in "A Bug's Life," the ant in the game must jump first on an acorn, which then turns into a mushroom.

Powers said the vibration in question occurs only when t... [ Read More (1.6k in body) ]