Kickstarter Refuses To Settle Or Be Silenced Over Ridiculous 'Teledildonics' Patent Lawsuit

from the virtually-fucking-patent-trolls dept

Back in 2010, we wrote about the ridiculous patent thicket in "teledildonics" -- better known as internet-connected sex toys. A few different companies had been claiming patents on teledildonics and some patent lawsuits had broken out over it. One of the patents we covered, US Patent 6,368,268, was held at the time by New Frontier Technologies, for a "method and device for interactive virtual control of sexual aids using digital computer networks."

Earlier this year, however, a company named TZU popped up with that same patent and sued a bunch of companies, who offered various internet-connected sex toys. But, it also sued Kickstarter, because one of the products it was suing, the "Frebble" (a device for virtual long-distance "hand holding") had launched via a Kickstarter campaign. Blaming Kickstarter for that was a long shot, and Kickstarter made things tougher for TZU by actually fighting back.

Oh, and by refusing to walk away and be silent when offered the chance.

As Joe Mullin at Ars Technica writes, TZU ended up walking away entirely after Kickstarter refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement to hide a $0 "settlement."

Kickstarter refused to pay a "nuisance" settlement demand, preferring instead to litigate the case on principle. On the same day Kickstarter was going to file its response to the lawsuit, TZU offered a "walkaway" settlement in which Kickstarter would pay it nothing, as long as it signed a confidentiality agreement. Again, Kickstarter refused.

"This is a standard patent troll suit, the kind that, unfortunately, we have faced in the past," said Kickstarter general counsel Michal Rosenn in an interview with Ars. "We’re fortunate to be in a position where we can afford to take these suits to court."

Once TZU and its lawyers at the Southern California-based Cotman IP group realized Kickstarter fully intended to fight it out in court, it dropped the lawsuit. The case has been dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can't be re-filed.

Kudos to Rosenn and Kickstarter for standing up against this patent troll, and for using the Drew Curtis playbook, which includes fighting back, making it clear you'd rather spend money on lawyers than give a penny to the troll and, most importantly, refusing to agree to any sort of non-disclosure agreement when the troll tries to run away. This information needs to be public and it's nice to see Kickstarter take a stand. It would have been easy for the company to just sign the NDA and walk away, but then TZU could pretend that it had "won" a settlement from the company. It looks like NewEgg's "Don't Settle With Patent Trolls" concept is catching on.

Filed Under: patent troll, patents, teledildonics
Companies: kickstarter, tzu

More Patent Lawsuits Over Interactive Sex Toys -- The Teledildonic Patent Thicket

from the quite-a-patent-thicket dept

A few years ago, we wrote up a story about a patent fight concerning force feedback technology used in "cybersex" or "teledildonics." That case involved two patents from famed haptics company Immersion (5,889,672 and 6,275,213) which was involved in a bit of a legal fight with a company called Internet Services. The details suggested that Immersion -- who was famous for pioneering things like "force feedback" in video game controllers -- had licensed its patents to Internet Services, so that it could use them in the virtual sex space (also known as "teledildonics" -- you can figure it out). Immersion felt that it might not look good for an upstanding company such as itself to be involved in such a business, hence the licensing.

Well... now it appears that some others are claiming teledildonics patents, and they're not at all happy with Internet Services. Apparently a company called New Frontier Technologies, which licensed a patent (6,368,268 -- "method and device for interactive virtual control of sexual aids using digital computer networks," -- and you shouldn't miss the (possibly NSFW) flow charts on pages 5 and 6 of the patent) from another company, Hassex, is suing Internet Services for violating that patent with its "Real Touch" masturbation tool. Of course, it will be interesting to see if Internet Services fires back with the Immersion patents that it licensed.

In the meantime, this all brings new meaning to the concept of innovation happening when ideas have sex.

Filed Under: patent thicket, patents, sex toys, teledildonics
Companies: immersion, internet services, new frontier technologies

Immersion Settles Lawsuit Over Teledildonics Patent Royalties

from the left-out-the-interesting-part dept

The Associated Press has a short blurb about how haptics company and aggressive patent holder Immersion has settled its lawsuit with Internet Services LLC. Oddly, the AP report leaves out the details of the case -- which were pretty interesting -- preferring to make it sound like a generic patent lawsuit. The case, which we wrote about a few months back, involved questions over whether or not Immersion owed Internet Services money from Immersion's patent settlement with Sony.

You see, Immersion licenses "haptics" technology, which may be better known as "force feedback" technology -- the stuff that makes your video game controller vibrate when you drive your virtual car off the track in that racing game, for example. Immersion realized that such force feedback technology would also have a market in the porn world -- but apparently didn't want to sully its own name by associating with that world. So, instead, it licensed the right to enforce its patents in the "cybersex" and "teledildonics" to Internet Services. Then Immersion still gets the money but doesn't have to be seen as shaking down porn purveyors. The problem, though, was that Internet Services believed that the Sony PlayStation could be used for "cybersex" purposes as well as for straight gaming -- and thus, it felt cut out of Immersion's settlement with Sony.

And, from there, the fight was on -- and it got even more interesting earlier this year when the famed patent lawyer that Internet Services had hired to represent it against Immersion tried to quit -- and Internet Services went to court to require him to stay on the case. There's no word on the details of the settlement, but it's rather surprising that the AP would take this case and leave out most of the more interesting details.

Filed Under: cybersex, force feedback, haptics, patents, teledildonics
Companies: immersion, isllc

Who Says Patent Lawsuits Aren't Sexy?

from the cybersex-it-is dept

Joe Mullin has the details of a rather bizarre patent dispute involving a patent covering the user interface of force feedback technology used in "cybersex" or "teledildonics." You may have heard of the company Immersion, which, for years, has claimed to hold pretty much all patents on "haptic" technology, which most people are familiar with in the form of "force feedback" game controllers for console games. Some feel that Immersion's patents are overly broad, but that's beside the point on this one. Apparently, at some point, Immersion realized that there was going to be (or already was) a decent sized market in using such haptic technology for virtual sex. Yet, at the same time, the company felt uncomfortable about filing infringement lawsuits on such uses, recognizing that it could lead to negative publicity. So, instead, it licensed out the patents and the right to sue for infringement to a company called Internet Services, LLC (ISLLC), which (from the description in Mullin's article) sounds like a shell company just for this purpose.

However, when Immersion won its patent infringement lawsuit against Sony for its use of force feedback controllers on Sony gaming consoles, ISLLC apparently felt that Immersion owed it some of the proceeds. It hired famed patent attorney (and patent system expert) Mark Lemley to represent it. However, for somewhat unclear reasons, Lemley now appears to want nothing whatsoever to do with ISLLC and has asked to withdraw from the case. ISLLC has now hired other lawyers just to force Lemley to still represent it in its lawsuit against Immersion. It's like a patent battle soap opera -- complete with sex toys. See, just because stories are about patents, doesn't mean that they're not sexy.

Filed Under: force feedback, haptics, mark lemley, patents, sex toys, teledildonics
Companies: immersion, isllc