Valve is being sued by Immersion Corporation for allegedly infringing on seven patents relating to touch technology, or haptics, in its Steam Deck and Valve Index hardware. Immersion Corporation, founded in 1993, is a company that had an early history in the development of touchscreen technology, including a partnership with Microsoft, but from the 2000s onwards seems to have become more and more litigious: To the extent it's been described as a"".
"Our intellectual property is relevant to many of the most important and cutting-edge ways in which haptic technology is and can be deployed, and, in the case of AR/VR experiences, haptics is crucial to an immersive user experience," said Eric Singer, chairman and CEO of Immersion. U.S. Patent No. 8,749,507:"Systems and Methods for Adaptive Interpretation of Input from a Touch-Sensitive Input Device"U.S. Patent No. 9,116,546:"System for Haptically Representing Sensor Input"