June 30th, 2000

[6:00 AM] Sony Buckles, Connectix To Continue To Sell Virtual Game Station by Staff After months of legal haggling back and forth with Connectix, Sony has officially dropped any and all charges related to the Playstation emulator, Virtual Game Station. While there were originally 9 claims in the first suit against Connectix, 7 of those have now been dropped, with 2 others pending. This latest action by Sony does not guarantee that no further action will be taken, just that for the immediate future, the waters will be allowed to settle. According to a Connectix spokesperson: On the day before the hearing on Connectix' Motion to Dismiss, Sony Corporation has filed a voluntary dismissal of its patent case against Connectix. The hearing had been scheduled in front of Judge Legge in the US District Court and has been canceled as a result of the dismissal by Sony. The complaint alleged that Connectix Virtual Game Station infringed eleven patents on the Sony PlayStation® and was filed on February 14, 2000. Connectix Virtual Game Station is the award-winning software that enables many popular PlayStation® games to run on Pentium II or III PCs and G3 or G4 Macintosh computers including iBook and iMac. Detailed product information is available at www.connectix.com. Connectix Virtual Game Station won MacWorld's coveted "Best of Show" award when it was released at MacWorld Expo in early January 1999. Days later, Sony brought suit to suspend sale of the product claiming copyright infringement and tarnishment of the PlayStation name and other marks. After the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rejected Sony's claims, Sony subsequently alleged that Connectix infringed eleven of its patents. Seven of the nine claims in the first suit have now been dismissed by the court and the remaining two are being evaluated for possible dismissal at a hearing on September 1, 2000. The eleven patents in suit in the second action were withdrawn entirely by Sony today. You can find more information about Virtual Game Station at the Connectix web site. Connectix