Joystick Port Patented, Now the Lawsuit

Panaqqa writes "It appears that Fenner Investments, a Texas based patent troll, is at it again. This time, they are suing Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo for infringing a patent they hold on joystick ports. Perhaps they felt they needed a "Plan B" now that their lawsuit against Juniper Networks, Nokia, Cisco, Alcatel and Ericsson is not going so well."

I'd like to see

[p51d007]

someone sue the lawyers bringing up these lawsuits...since they are driving us nuts, and crippling businesses. If there ever was a need for "looser pays" it's because of crap like this.

Patent Troll list

[pr0nbot]

Wikipedia page on Patent Trolls, with a list that doesn't appear to include the trolls in question guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll [wikipedia.org]

And..

[El Lobo]

people wonder why does Microsoft patent things... Here ladies and Gentllemen, you have the answer. If you have deep pockets, you better defend yourself.

Re:I'd like to see

[Anonymous Coward]

loser* ?

Anyone read Patent-ese?

[91degrees]

I can't work out what the patent is actually for. Even the abstract is a little vague apart from telling me it's some sort of analogue joystick interface.

Re:Business based on law suites

[planetmn]

Is it just me or does this speak so clearly to the culture we have developed in the US?

How does this relate to the culture of the US? Sure, there are some companies that are trying to make money as patent trolls, just as there are always people trying to get a quick buck. But the vast majority of Americans are never a party to a patent lawsuit.

The idea that you can only get ahead by suing the pants off of some corporation.

There are a lot of companies out there that innovate and compete in order to get ahead. Just because there are a few examples of cases like the above does not mean that it's the standard operating procedure for a business.

In typical slashdot style, somebody has taken a situation, and extrapolated it out to now cover the entire population of the United States. The above case sure does seem frivalous, and it in no way represents the culture in the US.

-dave

Re:This is junk

[PFI_Optix]

From the patent:

Filing date: Jul 10, 1998

Does more really need to be said?

Prior art... Nintendo 64

[gozar]

Their patent applies to analog joysticks. It's a method of sending the information of a joystick's position as a digital pulse, therefore requiring less wiring for multiple analog sticks and buttons. The controller could send the information about the various states of the buttons and joysticks encoded as a digital stream.

Unfortunately for them, they applied for the patent in '98, long after the N64 was released. I don't know for sure, but since the N64 controller only has (IIRC) 3 wires in the cable, they must be using something like what this patent describes.

It's interesting that they applied for the patent two months after the release of the dual-shock controller for the PS1. IMO, someone saw the dual shock and patented the idea on how it would work.

Re:Capping the maximum damages awarded.

[TheThiefMaster]

Except that that would mean that companies that could afford $5M easily could intentionally infringe on as many patents as they liked, even drawing the legal battle out long enough to bankrupt the holder.

Re:Prior art?

[Emil Brink]

Clarification: the Amiga analog joysticks worked like that, yes. The default joystick used on the Amiga was digital, though, and just used five (later more) switches to generate the up/down/left/right/fire signals. :)

Re:Prior art?

[UbuntuDupe]

Good idea. Remember, it's harder to defend a court order preventing a technology from being distributed if the only damages are loss of revenue, which is easy to correct later if it turns out it really infringes a patent. In other words, a "patent"holder will never ABSOLUTELY need the infringement to stop RIGHT NOW.

Also, it would be nice if a patent could be voided on the grounds that it was deliberately worded to obscure similarity to prior art.

Re:Capping the maximum damages awarded.

[AndersOSU]

That basically gives big business free reign to steal any technology that could be valued at more than $5 million - which is damn near any patent that is worth holding (and a lot that aren't). Now, I know some people on /. call for the total elimination of the patent system, but this probably wouldn't be the best way to kill it.

<pedant>when talking about money M usually means thousand, and MM million.</pendant>

Re:I'd like to see

[kalirion]

Quite often the lawyers are only the "weapons" in these cases. It's the clients that need to be sued. Of course there are plenty of cases where the lawyers are the instigators of the BS (looking at you, Jack Thompson)....

Re:Prior art?

[Zordak]

If you are sued for patent infringement, your attorney will file a motion for summary judgment, and one of the theories will be that the patent is invalid as a matter of law. If it fails as a summary judgment motion, it will go before the jury. The validity of the patent WILL get litigated if the case doesn't settle. Forcing the parties to put off litigating infringement until after they settle the validity of the patent would be ridiculously inefficient and more costly for BOTH parties. The problem is not the inability to challenge the validity of a patent in court. The problem is that obviousness under 35 U.S.C. s. 103 has become such a hyper-technical non-hurdle that it is nearly impossible to invalidate a patent once it has been judged novel. Until we revise section 103 to strengthen obviousness, this will continue to happen. Fortunately, the weak obviousness standard is hurting big, monied companies with powerful lobbies (like Microsoft and Sony). So you can bet things are going to change.

Re:Business based on law suites

[UbuntuDupe]

Not really. Parasites exist in most systems and represent a legitimate (though culturally reprehensible) strategy in game theory, economics, etc.

That's true, but I think the parent was referring to the lawsuit lottery mentality whereby people dream of ways to snare wealthy corporations by suing them in unanticipated ways and thus get rich. In the US, no jury's findings are binding on another's, so if the first jury says, "placing a warning this way would have sufficed", and the corporation switches to that way, the next jury is free to rape it again for insufficient warning. Plus, juries are likely to rule out of sympathy ("Well, the doctor didn't really do anything wrong, but gee, it would really suck to be the patient now, and gosh, those insurance companies sure have unlimited money, so what the hell...") or desire for fame ("Hey, we can't get on Oprah unless we rule against the big evil corporation, and gosh, isn't that plaintiff's attorney so sweet the way he smiles...").

Does it happen in other countries? Sure, but not nearly as often. For example, Japan has a similarly developed economy but only a fraction of the lawyers per capita and "investment" in the legal system.

To many, this behavior is wrong (it certainly introduces greater inefficiencies), but at a minimal level, it provides the benefit of killing off the weak.

Well, it provides the "benefit" of killing off those who are weak *along a certain dimension*, but being weak along that dimension rarely means you're a drain on the economy somehow. Sure, Mr. Viklstein can't defend his bank against arsonists, but that doesn't mean he's a drain on the economy.

That said, I agree there should be a sort of "loser pays" system for frivolous suits like you've suggested.

Re:I'd like to see

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you.

And if getting pissed at the misspelling of 'loser' makes me a troll then I'll proudly wear my label as troll.

Re:Fixing the system

[Infinityis]

Actually, it might work to just stipulate the award money in advance, and then whichever side loses the patent suit would be required to pay out that amount to the winner. If you *know* that your patent is being infringed and that it will hold up, then go for the big dollars because they are rightly yours. However, if there is even a shadow of a doubt that there might be prior art or something else that would invalidate your patent, then patent trolls will think twice before adding a few zeros to the damages they seek.

The fundamental problem is that the potential cost of losing is so low that it is becoming commoditized, which is why we're starting to see patents being bought and sold in bulk.

My recommendation for patent reform

[szembek]

We need a 'use it or lose it' mentality to patents. If you patent a new type of mouse and it's 7 years later and somebody else is selling these mice and you haven't done shit with yours... then too bad so sad. This will eliminate these patent trolls.

Re:I'd like to see

[ajs318]

A bit like killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?

I've heard some excellent ideas here but

[RexDevious]

but I haven't heard any explanation of how they might be implemented. Say you want to see a common sense reform like, "You can't patent a business process" or "You can't patent something you've never created". How would that reform happen? Do we just hope the SCOTUS intervenes, making a ruling during a case which has ramifications for other cases? Would the Congress need to pass a bill laying out such a reform? Is there anything we can do as citizens to push things in the right direction?

The only thing I can think of is to patent a method of "Reducing and preventing severe head pain, through the application of a system which regulates the velocity of any high density object as it approaches the cranial system. The forumla for the appropriate approach is F=MA, where F is less than painful"; and then suing the patent trolls for infringement. Of course, I wouldn't settle out of court; I'd demand an immediate cease-and-desist.

Not smashing yourself over the head with blunt objects? Hey... that's *my* idea!

Bogus claims describe a PC Joystick

[wiredlogic]

The claims are all describing the old "dumb" analog PC joystick. The claims specifically describes the joystick as being dependent on a processor on the other side of the interface to perform the procedure of measuring the position of the joystick. Ignoring the scads of prior art for this type of joystick, all modern consoles with analog sticks and all USB joysticks have some form of integrated processor that performs the procedure described in the claims before anything goes out over the interface. Even if the patent were valid there can be no valid claim of infringement for any modern hardware.

Re:This is junk

[Anonymous Coward]

This patent is a monopoly on something obvious. No, it's not quite a "patent on the joystick port" if you read it (but don't read it, if you read it they could get triple damages!) (amigas and other platforms had analogue and digital joysticks in the 1980s of course, so it would be instantly invalidated if that was all it was).

However, it is still neither non-obvious nor particularly inventive, to the people whose opinion should count (of course, the people whose opinions count in the USA are MBAs, PHBs, Lawyers and just about anyone other than engineers!).

Asking USPTO folk to judge patent novelty is a bit like those stereotypical primitives on a tropical island who are wowed by the god-like power of motor boats and airplanes. People judging the validity of patents are, almost necessarily, unqualified: the people who would be qualified either detest patents (most engineers, not just in software, btw) or can earn far more actually working as engineers or both. So you end up with, well, weenies, in charge of handing out 20 year monopolies.

Re:Prior Art anyone?

[honkycat]

Perhaps clever, but again I'm skeptical that they were the first to use the PWM into a digital input scheme, largely because their claim is so narrow. If they were the first to realize you can use the PWM signal with a digital-only input line, then there's no doubt you can patent that alone. Since they restrict it as an application for a joystick (and since this was 1998), my gut tells me they took a known technique and patented the specific application.

A Fascinating Patent

[ratboy666]

but not in a good sense.

An explanation for those who don't want to read the patent:

An anlog joystick is pretty much a variable resistor. In order to convert this into a digital domain, the resistance must be measured. We know that the resistor itself can be used to change the discharge time of a capacitor -- this is common. Meauring the discharge time means determining the time the capacitor goes from one voltage to a lower voltage. Which, by its very nature is a "pulse".

And this patent seems to cover all such interfaces in the "joystick" domain.

Now, I can come up with alternate methods for reading the resistance. First one (off the top of my head), is to use a series of resistors controlled by a latched value to produce a reference voltage which is then sent through the joystick resistance. The final output is run through a gate which triggers at a reference voltage. Via search, we can determine the target joystick resistance. (I would probably use a binary search). But this is not any where NEAR as simple or obvious as the R-C approach.

Now, the R-C approach has been used for other variable resistors (prior to 1998) -- the "joystick" application is the only new thing. I used it myself in the 80's. Just never for a joystick (not being into gaming). Its main benefits are that it needs only a single input pin and the circuit is simple. But, given those constraints it is obvious.

Oh well -- go patent trolls. Sure glad I am not in the US.

Re:Prior art?

[Shads]

Translated for truth:

"The patent system is cumbersome, imperfect, costly, etc. but it is also the best system to stifle innovation by anyone not able to field a thousand lawyers to protect themselves from someone who patented an obvious technology after it had been in existence for 20 years due to an idiot in the patent office."

Re:Capping the maximum damages awarded.

[Shads]

Good solution would be a patent is valid for 10 years from its inception, after that it becomes PD and is never patentable again.

Most of the patents we see today are stupid, transmitting email wirelessly over a tcp connection...durr. They're granted because the examiners have -zero- clue what they're doing in most cases... and if you don't like the examiner you got, feel free to resubmit till you get one stupid enough to grant your inane bullshit.