PS2's Emotion Engine infringes 17 year old patent, claims University
The University of Wisconsin Madison has filed a suit against Sony and Toshiba, claiming that technology being used in the PlayStation 2's Emotion Engine infringes a patent which was filed by the university in 1986.
Little information about the lawsuit or the patent it deals with is available at the moment, although we do know that the University is seeking damages and a halt to the use of the processing technology in question.
The PlayStation 2 is based on a MIPS processing core, designed by Motorola, with custom extensions added to it to improve the efficiency of the console. However, Sony refers to this unit as the "EE Core" - the Emotion Engine is used to describe a wider package of central components on the PS2 board.
It's not clear which of these components the lawsuit refers to, but it's unlikely to be the EE Core itself, as to the best of our knowledge Toshiba had no hand in the creation of this chip.
News source: Gamesindustry.biz
