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Immersion, a company specializing in haptic feedback technology, has settled a lawsuit with Meta over the use of touch-feedback in its Quest VR headsets.
one in Press releaseImmersion said it has signed a license with Meta to make Immersion’s patents available to Meta and its partners for hardware, software, VR and gaming products. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“We are pleased to grant Meta the license to our patents for haptic technologies,” Eric Singer, Immersion’s president and CEO, said in a canned statement. “We are excited to license Meta to deliver high-quality haptics into their devices.”
Based in Aventura, Florida and founded in 1993, Immersion’s first major client was Microsoft, with whom the startup worked to integrate its haptic feedback and touch technology into Microsoft’s DirectX API. In 1999, after acquiring the haptic patent portfolio from a small tech firm, Cybernet Systems, Immersion became publicly listed on Nasdaq.
In the years since its IPO, Immersion has gained a reputation as a patent troll, using targeted mergers to acquire the rights to over a thousand haptic feedback patents. As of 2014, Immersion had over 1,650 issued or pending patents in the haptic field in the US and other countries – this number is expected to decline to approximately 1,200 to 1,300 by the end of June 2022.
Some of Immersion’s patents are of questionable validity in 2018 Post On the Electronic Frontier Foundation Blog Spotlight. One, “Interactive Virtual Reality Performance Theater Entertainment System”, incorporates minor changes to existing VR systems such as allowing players to watch pre-recorded videos – even though these changes were not new at the time the patent application was filed.
Immersion filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and Sony in 2002, alleging that their game console controllers were infringing on two of his patents. Both defendants ultimately reached settlements with Emerson that included payments of millions of dollars; Sony was forced to pay $150 million, while Microsoft opted to purchase 10% of Immersion’s stock and a perpetual license.
It has long been rumored that Sony’s losses caused the company to release the PlayStation 3 version of its DualShock controller without any glitches.
In 2016, Emerson claimed that Apple infringed two patents on the iPhone 6s and Apple Watch. And in May 2023, Immersion sued Valve for alleged infringement related to the company’s use of vibration in its Steam Deck and Valve Index VR headsets.
Interestingly, recently Post As Gary Bourgeault of Seeking Alpha points out, Immersion’s business model is not particularly profitable – or sustainable in the long run. The company has remained in the $30 million to $36 million revenue range for several years, which includes huge legal departments and significant overhead from litigation against companies with deep pockets.
“On the litigation side, [Immersion] The million-dollar prize may cause a temporary increase in its stock price,” Borgelt writes. ,[B]As mentioned earlier, there aren’t many big companies to move the needle if they decide to sue to protect their patents… the point is, while the fixed fees, licensing and royalties , There’s a very predictable stream of revenue from those streams that will go away once the patents expire.”
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