Sony loses key round in Dual Shock battle

SONY'S court case against Immersion over technology that makes gaming controllers vibrate seems to be falling apart under the strain.

A federal judge has chucked out Sony's latest attempt get the court to dismiss the case leaving the entertainment gear maker's defence look a bit shaky.

Immersion holds US patents 6,275,213 and 6,424,333, which use computer-controlled vibrating motors to provide feed back to a player during a game or other application. The patents were filed in 1995 but not approved until 2000.

Immersion sued Sony and Microsoft for their vibration feedback system for controllers in 2002. Vole paid out leaving Sony all alone.

In September of 2004, Sony lost a jury trial and was ordered to pay US$82 million in damages. An appeal in 2005 increased the amount of damages to $91 million.

Undeterred, Sony claimed that Immersion was holding back evidence and requested that the original verdict be tossed out. It said that the inventions of Craig Thorner, who worked for Immersion, were not properly disclosed to its legal team.

The Wall Street Journal reports that US District Judge Claudia Wilken said that Thorner's testimony was suspect as he received cash from Sony and may have been appearing in court as a favour to the outfit.

Sony still has not paid out and its last chance will be a US Court of Appeal hearing later this according to Ars Technica. µ