Sony Ordered to Halt PlayStation Sales

James Joyner | Monday, March 28, 2005

Sony has been ordered to stop selling its popular PlayStation video games after losing a major patent infringement case.

Sony Ordered to Halt PlayStation Sales (Reuters)

Sony Corp. said on Monday it was ordered by a U.S. court to halt sales of its blockbuster PlayStation consoles in the United States and pay $90 million in damages to a California tech company, Immersion Corp., whose shares jumped more then 5 percent. Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony’s gaming unit, said it would appeal the decision by a California federal court in the patent infringement case.

For the time being, Sony will keep selling PlayStations as the order — which covers the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, two game controllers and 47 software titles — will not go into effect before the appeal, an SCE spokeswoman said. Sony will be paying compulsory license fees to Immersion, she added.

Wow.

Update: Typo in original corrected.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.

Follow James on FriendFeed | Twitter | Digg

• None Found

• OTB Radio - Tonight at 7 Eastern
• Don’t Forget Rent Seeking
• Iraq WMD’s Revisited
• Chrysler Goes Shrill
• Extreme Beer
• Twitter Revolution Will Not be Televised
• The Mumbai Terrorist Attacks and “Open Source” Warfare
• Obama Gets High Marks
• More Franken Ballots Found!
• Chambliss Wins Runoff, Denies Democrats 60 Seats

Tags | Economics and Business, James Joyner, Popular Culture

| | Permalink | Send TrackBack

Comments are Closed