Sony has significantly boosted the fortunes of its Sony Ericsson handset joint venture by donating its high profile Walkman and Cybershot brands to the cause, with the former the only logo with a hope of touching that of iPhone/iTunes in mobile music. But many believe the real killer move for the smartphone maker in its core multimedia heartland would be to import the PSP (PlayStation Portable) gaming brand to the phone market. The Japanese giant may have come a step closer to taking on the iPhone by the jugular, filing two patents that point to a touchscreen gaming/phone device with direct and gesture-based input. Sony already leads in gesture input due to its PlayStation Eye Toy, built around its in-house CCD technology which is used in cameras.
It was June last year that Sony filed a patent to create a simple way to rotate the insides of a handset so that it resembles a PSP, and can then be used as a portable handheld console and since then executives have made several references to a PSP phone launch and in the new Sony Ericsson F305 launched last month, it introduced a new Motion Gaming capability which works almost like the Nintendo Wii. The screen seems to be the next step in an onslaught into merging the handset and the gaming device.
The two newly filed US patent applications show a handheld touchscreen unit with both methods of input, direct and gesture, plus a system called ‘tactile pixels’ for feedback ‘ this is based on a grid of small ‘bumps’ that would lift to raise the screen and help simulate physical button presses. The patent suggests that individual tactile pixels could serve as an alternative control mechanism to the main touchscreen, and it says that it would be the first touchscreen to receive ‘visible and mechanical’ input at the same time.
Potential applications of the invention are listed in the filings as gaming devices, phones, portable media players, web browser devices, navigators and email gadgets. One of the patents is credited to Phil Harrison, until February the president of Sony Computer Entertainment and a key player in developing the PlayStation business.
Of course, these are just patent filings and there is a long way to go before they may turn up in a PSP phone, but the documents indicate how the race to innovate in the area of touchscreens and other forms of input, and in high end mediaphones in general, is heating up.
Currently it’s Apple’s efforts which are grabbing the headlines, and Sony Ericsson, with the help of its Japanese co-parent’s consumer electronics expertise, is fighting hard.
The real innovators are often the Koreans, however, especially LG, whose upgraded Chocolate phone is due shortly. LG has often accused Apple of copying its ideas and even filed patent suits against the US company shortly after the original iPhone launch. Now there are signs that the Korean government, always a key player in the fortunes of the country’s hi-tech companies, may be taking on the battle. ETRI, Korea’s state-funded technology research center, has filed a lawsuit for patent violation against Sony Ericsson, HTC and Kyocera for alleged infringement of three 3G patents, filing in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. ETRI is claiming ‘significant royalties’ and hints strongly that other suits may follow.
These specific patents cover digital modulation schemes – Orthogonal Complex Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (POCQPSK), acquisition indication sense MA (AiSMA), and Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), which were patented in the US in 2002, 2003 and 1999 respectively. More important though, is the indication that, in common with Japanese and Chinese companies and governments, Korea is seeking to swing the balance of the IPR burden in mobile communications away from the West in its own favor, a battle that has already played a major role in WiMAX, where core technology now comes from Samsung, and which is now spreading to mediaphones.
ETRI said in a statement: ‘We will be shifting our focus of claiming our intellectual property rights from protection of core technologies to profiteering from them. We will maximize royalty income from our proprietary technologies.’