Immersion Corporation is a company founded in the 90s. If in its beginnings it specialized in haptic feedback technologies, it has since become known for its aggressive patent acquisition policy.
As early as 2002, Immersion Corporation sued Sony and Microsoft in court, accusing them of improperly using patented technology in the controllers of their game consoles. the company can nevertheless boast of having won each time. Today, the lawyers ofImmersion are demanding money from Valve.
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Immersion Corporation executives accuse Valve of having violated one or more of their patents, and of having used them in the Steam Deck, the portable game console, and in the Valve Index VR headset. According to The Verge, “ Immersion Corporation seeks damages, royalties, and an injunction prohibiting Valve from deploying, operating, maintaining, testing, and using” the aforementioned technologies. Unless the manufacturer decides to license said technologies, of course.
Valve is sued over the vibration technology used in its portable console
Immersion is certainly known for having invented controller vibration technologies, which are also found in the Nintendo Switch, but it is now famous for having accumulated so many patents that its leaders are now content to attack the companies which, more or less, use identical technologies. This predatory tactic has worked well so far. Rather than going to trial and defending their intellectual property, companies such as Sony, Microsoft, or even Apple preferred to settle the problem amicablyagainst cold hard cash.
As we can imagine, Valve would have done well without such a case, at a time when its Steam Deck faces ever-increasing competition. In addition to Nintendo’s game console, the American company must now deal with ROG Ally and Logitech’s G Cloud, launched in Europe at a very aggressive price.