Oct 2, 2000 - 10:31 AM Supreme Court Sidesteps PlayStation Dispute By Laurie Asseo Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court stayed out of a dispute between Sony and another company whose software allows people to run Sony PlayStation games on personal computers. The court, without comment Monday, let Connectix continue selling its Virtual Game Station until a lower court rules on Sony's claim of unfair competition. Sony has sold 50 million PlayStations - small computers with hand controls - that plug into a television set and allow consumers to play games inserted into the computer on a compact disc. The PlayStation's software program is protected by copyright. In January 1999, Connectix of San Mateo, Calif., began selling the Virtual Game Station, which allows people to run PlayStation games on their own personal computers. The Virtual Game Station software does not contain any of Sony's copyright material. But in developing it, Connectix used the PlayStation's software program by extracting its code from a chip and copying it repeatedly on its own computer to see how it worked. Sony filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit, and a federal judge in San Francisco halted sales of the Virtual Game Station in April 1999 pending a ruling. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted that order last February, saying Connectix's action amounted to a "fair use" of Sony's software. The court said Connectix was a "legitimate competitor" in creating computer platforms on which Sony games can be played, adding that copyright law does not allow Sony to monopolize that market. In the appeal acted on Monday, Sony's lawyers said the ruling erodes copyright protection for computer programs. Connectix's actions were "pure free-riding, using the protected work to develop a substitute far more quickly and inexpensively than the original," Sony's lawyers said. Sony invested three years and $500 million to develop the PlayStation, its lawyers said, while Connectix took six months and $150,000 to create its product. Connectix's lawyers said the company created "an entirely new environment" for playing PlayStation games. A 1998 federal law boosting copyright protections for the computer industry endorsed the process used by Connectix, the lawyers said. In May, a federal judge in San Francisco threw out seven of Sony's nine allegations against Connectix in the copyright case, allowing Sony to pursue claims of violating trade secrets and unfair competition. The case is Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix, 00-11. http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAEWJW8UDC.html "The electron, in my judgment, is the ultimate precision-guided munition." -John Deutsch, CIA Director