Valve was sued by Immersion Corporation because the latter believes that the person responsible for Steam has infringed his patents related to his Haptic vibration technology in Steam Deck, Valve Index VR platform, Steam VR software and video games such as Half-Life: Alyx. This isn’t the first time Immersion Corporation has sued video game or tech giants for the same reason, and looking at the precedents, it’s normal that it gets away with it.

Through a lawsuit, Immersion sought an injunction against Valve to “not to implement, operate, maintain, test and use chargeable portable and virtual reality tools”, to which is added the typical damages that accompany this type of process. In his argument, he mentioned seven patents that were registered between 2002 and 2016.

As we’ve said before, history shows that perhaps the best thing for Valve to do is reach a settlement with Immersion as soon as possible, as the plaintiff company apparently managed to twist reality to get out of it. Sony and Microsoft have ended up licensing Immersion’s patents in the past, with Apple, Google, Motorola and Fitbit later joining..

The alleged “reality twist” occurs when we say that Nintendo and Sony use different vibration technologies that Valve also uses, but even so, the two Japanese video game giants decided to skip and license the Immersion patents to avoid problems. Even if it’s meant to be The Rumble Pack for the Nintendo 64 controller escaped lawsuits, now its vibration technology is licensed by Immersion.

So when we see the wins that the plaintiff has achieved, and as we’ve said before, everything indicates that it’s best for Valve to reach a settlement as soon as possible. On the other hand, it’s worth noting that Immersion Corporation has been accused of being a patent troll several times.

The Steam Controller wasn’t in demand, perhaps because it was discontinued years ago and it’s not like it was a huge commercial success. However, the failed controller recently cost Valve a lawsuit from Ironburg Inventions, which accused the Steam boss of infringing a 2014 patent involving back buttons. In this case, the jury found Valve guilty of infringing the Ironburg Inventions patent and awarded $4 million in damages.