These kind of patent lawsuits are lame...

These kind, obvious software patents and also so-called 'financial patents' (these are no so well known as stupid IT patents, but their implications can be even more severe). The reform of patent system is rather inevitable but the question is when...

Ahh cmon that's not going to work well with them. Wonder why they got the such a patent.

Yes mh, it will get done sooner or later. It's a matter of time only.

Patents sucks.
Software patents sucks even more.
Patent trolls are annoying.

Um... PCs don't use a joystick port, they use a MIDI port, previously patented long before this little guy. Game systems from MS, Sony, and Nintendo use port systems that are also patented seperately, and in the case of all existing game systems, use digital (or wireless) signal transfer from the controller to the game system. It's not translating position information in the game system on the other side of the port like the contested patent describes, but in the controller before it sent to the game system. This means the "joystick port" is not actually that, but a peripheral port, also capable of attaching multi-tap splitter systems, remote controls, infra red recievers, and more.

The fact that joystick data is conveyed across that port is irrelevent. Also, the periphal port itself was patented previous to the joystick port, and there have been several independent patents issued based on the type of data they trasfer, the nature of the analog or digital signal, the pin-out, and more. Each has its own patent, and each is simultaneously protected by law. A universal patent covering them all is false, and uninforceable.

Oh yea, btw, the xbox port is actually a redesigned USB port, so you can't sue Microsoft under this anyway...

The above patent abstract looks completely non-obvious and unique.

It is specific to the components it uses, and thus probably has claims that specify the potential use of those components without narrowing the scope of the patent (which IMHO is already pretty narrow).

Thus, this is not a good example of a lawsuite that should spur "patent reform".

The above abstract is very similar to the operation of the Apple II joystick port.

The Apple II used a quad version of the 555 timer integrated circuit. Each of the 4 (total) channels used one of the 555 timers, along with an RC (resistive-capacitive) network to convert the analog joystick position into a pulse whose width was then measured by software.

30 year old tech. Maybe even older.

Also, the IBM PC had some kind of analog joystick port. This patent is DOA - not that would stop lawyers.

Joysticks have been around alot long that 1998, so how could a company get a patent on something that has been around alot longer. This sounds like a patent that should not have been issued to begin with. There seems to be alot of this type of thing going on lately. My guess is that someone in the patent office is getting rich.

Couldn't you work around the problem by using something other than a D latch in the circuit?

It's probably not the way I'd have done it, though I admit it looks like it would take fewer transistors and maybe lower power than some ways. My first thought was an integrator or sawtooth generator. Could you modify the old fashioned two transistor monostable circuit to do it even simpler? If you did that could you patent the result, even though that monostable circuit is in most school electronics text books?

It's not complex, about the level I'd expect of an electronics school student or a keen teenager. Especially if that person was asked to "come up with an alternate to this prior art using CMOS logic" because the working principle of charging a capacitor and measuring the time is the same.

On the other hand, it probably is novel and unique. This becomes a question what we allow to be patented.

This sounds just like how the Commodore 64 sound chip reads analog controls (paddles) on the joystick port - periodic sampling of an RC network.

This is nothing like how the C64 reads paddles or joysticks. The old Atari/C64 joystick ports were digital for the joysticks and analog for paddles in the form of reading a voltage modified by a pot. This is using a pulse witdh modulation to determine just how far the joystick is being pushed, so it allows for more than a up/down/left/right solution. It can handle how far up/down/left/right the joystick is being pushed.

This is not novel or unique and is indeed the way joysticks on PCs have been read since the days of the 16-bits. The argument of the physical port isn't the issue. Yes, pre-USB joysticks were plugged into a port on the sound card, but the "interface" to which they refer is actually the circuitry that interfaces the joystick to the PC, not the physical connector.

It is bogus in that patents are subject to prior art. If it is demonstrated (as can be done) that this interface existed before the patent, it will be thrown out.

Also, using different components to accomplish the same task does not substantiate a different patent. At best, there would be a new schematic which is copyrighted, but that copyrighted work would infringe on the patent.

Thats it. I'm patenting the act of using the motion of an internal muscular wall to create pressure differentials within a chest cavity to induce the motion of atmospheric gases into and out of internal pulmonary organs.

BU-HA-HA-HA (Insert Best Dr. Evil laugh Here)

This type of patent abuse is absolute rubbish.

Fenner Investments is well known in the Intellectual Property world as a less than stellar example of the use of Patents for licensing and protecting technology. Patent Troll might not quite fit, but it is close.

Wow, wonder if this is why MS in their infinite wisdom decided to NOT support GAMEPORTS in VISTA.

Analog gameports just will NOT function in the new Windows Vista. Hopefully somebody (either private or MS) will write a patch to allow this function. Too many good analog joysticks still out there.