New Lawsuit Filed Against Valve Claims Controller Designs Were Stolen

While information technology may be discontinued, the Steam Controller is even so haunting Valve. A lawsuit filed against Valve alleges that it willfully overlooked the patent another company held on part of the blueprint of the Steam Controller.

The lawsuit confronting Valve was filed by SCUF, a custom gaming peripheral manufacturer. The company has its own line of modified controllers for both PlayStation and Xbox consoles that include colored faceplates, thumbsticks, and as many back paddles as a player could want. Nonetheless, in opening arguments for an ongoing trial regarding these allegations, a lawyer representing SCUF claimed that Valve had copied the "rear-side command surfaces Ironburg had just patented." Ironburg Inventions is the patent-property arm of SCUF, co-ordinate to Law360.

Co-ordinate to the lawyer representing SCUF, Valve was get-go warned about its copyright infringing pattern in 2022. Despite this, the company continued on with manufacturing and eventually selling the Steam Controller. Speaking to a jury over Zoom, Ironburg lawyer Robert Becker stated that "Valve's intentional disregard of its infringement is at the middle of this case." SCUF has since licensed its patent for rear buttons on controllers to Xbox. The back paddles on premium Xbox Elite Controllers are the very aforementioned as those at the middle of these allegations.

Becker went on to assault Valve, maxim the company was using its weight in the gaming industry to trample on the rights of smaller companies. "[It's] the classic David and Goliath story: Goliath does what Goliath wants to do."

Valve is denying any wrongdoing, with a lawyer representing the company saying that SCUF would reveal imitation and contradistinct data. The lawyer, Trent Webb, said "Nothing you volition see or hear from Ironburg will change what y'all can see with your own eyes and experience with your own hands when you get that Steam Controller." The controller was first released in 2022 earlier beingness discontinued on November 26, 2022.

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