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A jury, assembled on Zoom, voted unanimously against Valve in a lawsuit over a Steam Controller patent infringement case, awarding $ 4 million in damages to Ironburg Inventions and SCUF. The initial complaint was filed in 2015 in a Washington court.
SCUF and Ironburg Inventions, subsidiaries of computer company Corsair, are known for their “high performance” custom video game controllers – specializing in custom accessories and equipment. SCUF holds 105 patents for its designs, according to its website, many of which relate to its special trigger mechanisms. The “rear control surfaces”, as explained in the pleadings at the end of January, were the subject of this particular case. Basically, SCUF said Valve copied its rear paddles – the ones on the controller body.
It was similar technology that SCUF licensed to Microsoft in 2015 for use on its Xbox Elite controller. The company is also associated with Sony in 2018 on a PlayStation 4 controller that included four rear paddles and its signature trigger extensions.
Lawyers for SCUF alleged that Valve willfully ignored SCUF’s patents and warnings, and continued to move forward with its counterfeit steam controller.
“Valve knew there was an unreasonable risk of infringement in her conduct, but she simply broke anyway,” SCUF attorney Robert Becker said during the trial, as reported by Law360. “The classic story of David and Goliath – Goliath does what Goliath wants to do.”
On Tuesday, Corsair, owner of SCUF, announced that it had won its case against Valve after years in court. The jury voted unanimously on all of the claims, including that the violation was ‘willful’, meaning Corsair could be liable for more than the original fine, which is over $ 4 million .
Valve’s Steam Controller was on hold for a while – and officially sold out in 2019 after a deal that offered the controller for $ 5.
Last week, Valve was hit with a potential class action lawsuit alleging the company had violated antitrust rules. Five defendants have filed a complaint about a “most favored nations” clause in its contracts with game developers. This prevents game developers from selling their games on other platforms for lower prices than Steam, according to the complaint. This comes in addition to a combined € 7.8m fine imposed on Valve and five game publishers by the European Commission, after the commission found that the companies had violated antitrust rules over ‘geo-blocking’ .
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