Thomson-CSF SA’s venture capital arm has struck a blow to US virtual reality development by obtaining the rights to patents from pioneering US company VPL Research Inc: the gains resulted from the Foster City, California company’s failure to repay around $1m loans from Thomson – it had pledged its portfolio of around 20 patents and patent filings as collateral; the loss of VPL’s intellectual property could well damage US competitiveness in this new area, the Wall Street Journal suggests; although US industry is following the development of virtual reality which has applications ranging from military, through entertainment, communications, industrial design, medicine and robotics, it will be a while before the new technology becomes mainstream; VPL, set up in the late 1980s under polymath Jaron Lanier, is said to have run out of cash, despite demand for its systems, because of poor management and disorganised research; attempts to find further financial backing also failed – a common problem according to US godfather of virtual reality, Myron Krueger; the tale is seen as a warning to developers that fail to take adequate care of their patents – and perhaps to hesitant financiers; the Japanese and now the French have gained an edge in a field originally pioneered by US military and aeronautic scientists.
