Okay, cynical, world-weary pessimists that we are, we can't say we're exactly surprised, but it still makes us roll our eyes and sigh long and deep; Sony's filed another lawsuit against Connectix because of its Virtual Game Station product. The history between these two scrappers dates back to January of last year, when Connectix unveiled its groundbreaking PlayStation emulator to a cheering Expo crowd. Sony was not amused, and it was mere weeks before a suit was filed, alleging copyright infringement. A judge awarded Sony a preliminary injunction, and Connectix was therefore barred from manufacturing or shipping any more copies until the case was over.

Things moved at the typically glacial pace of litigation, until last week when a jubilant Connectix announced that an appeals court had overturned the injunction, freeing the company once again to resume shipments of VGS. (Everyone took this to mean that the case was over, but as far as we know, it's still pending and slated for a June or July trial-- only the injunction was struck down, to the best of our knowledge.) Anyway, if we can indulge in a bit of rampant personification for a moment, Connectix was doing a little victory dance, while Sony shook its fist and muttered, "Curses! Foiled again!" Sony skulked off to lick its wounds and plot its next move, as Connectix fired up its e-store and shipped like mad, grinning all the while.

Then the other shoe dropped; according to a Bloomberg News article, Sony's filed another lawsuit, this time alleging patent infringement. Sony claims that Connectix violated some eleven patents in the construction of their "rival product." And once again, you can bet that Sony's going to try for another injunction-- the lawyers probably care more about preventing Connectix from shipping its product than actually winning the cases. War by attrition; always an effective strategy. But until that injunction materializes, you can bet that Connectix is going to flood the channel with as many copies of VGS as it can crank out. Heck, there are still copies out there from before the last injunction...