Common Steam Deck dock maker pulls upcoming design, claiming a competitor stole it

Peripherals producer Jsaux has introduced it’s delaying and redesigning its deliberate RGB Steam Deck dock, as reported by Gaming on Linux. Jsaux alleges that its manufacturing associate leaked its design to a rival firm, and that this rival firm co-opting its design led to the choice to tug the product.

Valve has its in-house Steam Deck dock out there for buy, however with the lengthy delay earlier than it was launched and a $90 price ticket, it’s kind of of a tall order. In the meantime, any outdated USB-C hub will work for connecting a Deck to exterior peripherals, and producers like Jsaux have stepped in to supply cheaper alternate options to Valve’s docking station. We’re followers of the corporate’s customary Deck dock, although we suggest shelling out the additional $10 for its HB0603 mannequin.

Jsaux had already despatched out preview samples of its subsequent Steam Deck product, a variation on the HB0603 with an RGB ring across the base and additional beauty, gaming laptop-y thrives on the edges, when it introduced the product’s redesign and delay.

Within the put up from Jsaux, the corporate shares a screenshotted tweet with the account identify blacked out, allegedly from its competitor. The tweet contains video footage of a {hardware} peripheral with RGB lighting and tags various Steam Deck-focused influencers with the caption, “Latest Steam deck dock with flash lights. Coming quickly!!”

Jsaux then shares a sequence of screenshots from its CAD software program exhibiting design drafts of its RGB dock, courting the designs to July. The corporate states it filed a patent on the design in August. 

Jsaux alleges that its competitor acquired this design by its associate producer, and acknowledged that it will likely be utilizing a distinct manufacturing unit to supply its merchandise sooner or later.

Right now it is unclear who Jsaux’s unnamed competitor is. I am unable to discover any hint of the tweet through Twitter search or the tagged influencers’ exercise historical past. I additionally can’t discover the knockoff dock on sale on Amazon or AliExpress, although there are definitely different shops it could possibly be offered by. Steam Deck HQ, one of many shops tagged within the tweet, acknowledged that they know the identification of the rival firm by this connection, however are maintaining that data confidential in step with what appear to be Jsaux’s needs on the matter.

It is definitely a tangled little yarn of gaming peripheral company espionage, like an excellent low stakes model of a William Gibson story. It is unclear to me why Jsaux is pulling its product when it appears to be the wounded occasion, one with a patent on the design. Jsaux relies in China and I’d presume that its manufacturing associate and rival are as nicely, doubtlessly eliding the difficulties of a world copyright dispute, however I am hardly an skilled on Chinese language copyright legislation.

Regardless of the case, Jsaux intends to return to the drafting board and return with a brand new design for an RGB deck, predicting that it’ll have one thing to deliver to market after a number of months’ delay.