Judge rules in PlayStation's favour in $500m patent infringement lawsuit

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A US District Court judge has ruled that Sony did not infringe on another company's patented technology with its PlayStation consoles and controllers.

Genuine Enabling Technology first filed a complaint against Sony Corporation in 2017. It was seeking $500 million in damages.

GET claimed the platform holder infringed on its '730 Patent, entitled 'Method and Apparatus for Producing a Combined Data Stream and Recovering Therefrom the Respective User Input Stream and at Least One Input Signal.'

Among the claims, a central complaint is around the way PlayStation consoles and controllers communicate with each other — specifically submitting a separate signal on a 'slow-varying' frequency for button inputs and another higher frequency for motion control input.

GET asserted that no device could simultaneously receive both signals until its devised a solution with its '730 Patent.

However, Sony argued that the company had failed to provide enough evidence that proved a certain component in its controllers was "structurally equivalent" to logic diagrams laid out in GET's patent.

According to a Memorandum Opinion released on Tuesday, March 25 2024, as seen by GamesIndustry.biz, the judge agreed that GET had "failed to raise a dispute of fact" and granted Sony's request for a summary judgement of non-infringement. He also declared the case closed.

Genuine Enabling Technology also filed a similar lawsuit against Nintendo regarding infringement of the same patent.

The District Court judge of that case also ruled in favour of Nintendo in 2020, but the US Court of Appeals reverse this decision in 2022. The case is ongoing.