Sony fined $18.5m in Agere patent spat

Sony's PSP falls foul of Agere's patents

After two years of legal wrangling Sony Corporation has been ordered to pay $18.5m (£12.5m) in compensation for wilfully infringing on several patents owned by Agere Systems.

Agere filed suit against Sony in the US District Court of Texas in July 2006 for eight patent infringements in several Sony products, including the PlayStation Portable (PSP).

The patents relate primarily to the wireless communication capabilities of some of Sony's devices, as well as to 'barrier layer treatments for tungsten plug'.

Sony claimed during the trial that it had the rights to the technologies through deals made with AT&T and Lucent, and even attempted to have seven of the eight patents declared invalid.

In a brief verdict document (PDF) the jury sided with Agere, finding Sony in violation of Agere's patents in its PSP, Mylo personal communicator and Network Walkman audio players, and awarding compensation of $18.5m as a "reasonable royalty".

During the course of the case Agere merged with LSI Logic to form the LSI Logic Corporation which offers components including semiconductors, systems and related software for storage, networking and consumer electronics products.