French Gaming Accessories Maker Subsonic Wins Patent Infringement Case Against Sony Over PlayStation Controllers

In a recent intellectual property dispute heard before the Paris Court of Appeal in France, French native gaming accessories manufacturer Subsonic successfully defeated Japanese tech giant Sony, thereby avoiding a substantial compensation claim arising from its marketing of PlayStation (PS) compatible controllers.

The core dispute centered on three now-expired Sony patents (EP 08 67 212, EP 08 34 338, and EP 13 31 974). As early as 2017, Sony Interactive Entertainment and its French branch had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Subsonic in France, alleging that the latter's PS-compatible controllers infringed Sony's patents and seeking corresponding economic damages.

However, in the second-instance ruling, the Paris Court of Appeal ultimately upheld the first-instance decision and dismissed Sony's infringement claims. The court's judgment was primarily based on a strict review of procedural compliance with intellectual property rules.

The presiding judge noted that although the patents in question had been transferred from "Sony Computer Entertainment" to "Sony Interactive Entertainment" during an internal corporate reorganization in 2010, according to the records of the French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), this assignment was not formally recorded in the National Patent Register (RNB) until August 2018. Sony had filed its infringement action and sought seizure measures as early as late 2016.

Because the plaintiff failed to provide formal registration proof of its legal ownership of the patents in France at the time the action was brought, the court ruled that Sony's infringement action was inadmissible for lack of standing (locus standi). Furthermore, the court also rejected Sony's unfair competition claim based on the same grounds.

This ruling not only marks a decisive victory for Subsonic in this patent battle but also highlights the importance for multinational companies of synchronizing internal transfers of intellectual property assets with formal external registration procedures. Ultimately, due to this fatal procedural flaw, Sony not only failed to prevent Subsonic from marketing its controllers but may also face the obligation to pay the other party's substantial legal costs.