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Immersion , a company specializing in tactile feedback technical school , has settled a lawsuit with Meta over the latter ’s usance of touch - feedback in its Quest VR headset .
In apress spill , Immersion said that it had signed a licence with Meta to make Immersion ’s patents useable to Meta and its affiliates ’ hardware , software , VR and gaming product . The term of the spate were n’t disclosed .
“ We ’re delighted to grant Meta a license to our letters patent for haptic technologies , ” Immersion prexy and CEO Eric Singer said in a terminate statement . “ We ’re unrestrained to license Meta for their delivery of high - tone haptics in their devices . ”
Based in Aventura , Florida and found in 1993 , Immersion ’s first major customer was Microsoft , with whom the startup play to incorporate its tactile feedback and touch engineering into Microsoft ’s DirectX APIs . After win a haptic patent portfolio from Cybernet Systems , a small tech business firm , in 1999 , Immersion listed publicly on the Nasdaq .
In the years since its IPO , Immersion has gained a reputation as a patent troll , using direct mergers to grow the rights to more than a thousand haptic feedback patent . As of 2014 , Immersion had over 1,650 come out or pending patents in the haptic field in the U.S. and other countries — a routine which drop to around 1,200 to 1,300 by the end of June 2022 .
Some of Immersion ’s patents are of dubious legitimacy , as a 2018poston the Electronic Frontier Foundation blog spotlights . One , “ Interactive virtual reality performance dramatics entertainment system , ” deal minor tweaks to existing VR systems like having player view prerecord picture — even though these pinch were n’t new at the patent app ’s filing .
concentration filed a suit against Microsoft and Sony in 2002 , alleging that their biz console controllers were infringing on two of its patents . Both defendants eventually reach agreements with Immersion that demand multimillion - dollar sign payments ; Sony was forced to pay $ 150 million , while Microsoft opted to buy 10 % of Immersion ’s stock and a perpetual license .
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It ’s long been rumored that Sony ’s loss led the company to release the PlayStation 3 version of its DualShock controller without rumble .
In 2016 , Immersion claim that Apple contravene two letters patent on the iPhone sestet and Apple Watch . And in May 2023 , Immersion sued Valve for alleged infringement relating to the use of vibration in the company ’s Steam Deck and Valve Index VR headset .
Interestingly , as a recentpostfrom seek Alpha ’s Gary Bourgeault points out , Immersion ’s business model is n’t especially profitable — or sustainable in the longsighted footrace . The party has remained in the $ 30 million to $ 36 million revenue range for a figure of age , with significant viewgraph from its litigation against companies with enormous legal department and deep pouch .
“ On the judicial proceeding side , [ Immersion ] can get impermanent boosts to its parcel price because of the millions of dollars it ’s grant , ” Bourgeault pen . “ [ B]ut as mentioned before , there are n’t a mint of big companies to move the needle if it decide to process to guard its patents … The point is , while there ’s a very predictable stream from desexualize fees , licensing and royalty , those streams of revenue ironical up once the patents scarper off . ”
