A new lawsuit accuses Valve Software of infringing upon patents on touch-feedback technology with its gaming products such as the Steam Deck.
The May 15 suit, filed in federal court in Seattle, comes from Immersion, a corporation based in Aventura, Fla. Immersion specializes in touch-feedback, or “haptic” technology since its foundation in 1993, and currently holds hundreds of patents in the field.
If you’ve ever held a Nintendo Switch and felt it vibrate in reaction to something you did in a video game, such as land from a long fall or fire a gun, that was done via Immersion’s licensed tech.
Immersion’s suit against Valve alleges that its Index VR headset and Steam Deck portable gaming PC both infringe upon seven patents that Immersion holds in the field of haptic technology, because both feature touch feedback for certain games. Titles listed in the suit, many of which are not published or developed by Valve, include Apex Legends, Half-Life: Alyx, STAR WARS: Jedi Survivor, War Thunder, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.
In the suit, Immersion requests that the court award it with damages “sufficient to compensate for Valve’s infringement,” as well as royalty payments and Valve being legally prohibited from continuing to use the patented technologies in question.
GeekWire reached out to Valve for comment, and we’ll update this story if we hear back.
Over the course of the last 20 years, Immersion gained a reputation in the field as a “patent troll,” after it used targeted acquisitions to gain the rights to over a thousand haptic-feedback patents by 2014. Its previous suits include accusations against Apple (2016), Sony (2002), Microsoft (2002), and Meta (2022).
Notably, its suit against Meta, regarding the force-feedback technology built into the controllers for the Meta Quest 2 headset, seeks comparable damages and restrictions on Meta, similar to the case against Valve.
Immersion’s most successful lawsuit to date saw it collect $150 million from Sony, after a California judge found in 2007 that Sony’s DualShock 2 controller had infringed upon Immersion’s touch-feedback patents. That suit is generally thought to be the reason why Sony’s next console, the PlayStation 3, did not feature touch-feedback technology in its pack-in controller.
Valve sued by Immersion in patent infringement lawsuit related to haptic technology by GeekWire on Scribd
