The litigation was initiated based on Motorola's various uses of a simple form of haptic effects in its mobile devices, sometimes referred to as Basic Haptics.

ENGADGET: Google settles patent lawsuit from Immersion over Motorola use of haptic feedback

In some cases it started off as a form of wage restraint in the dark days of the 1990s: companies cut basic wages and employees hoped that performance-related pay might make up the difference, which it did not always do.

ECONOMIST: Still work to be done

He saw Beethoven as a giant who had shown what it was still possible to do with basic structures such as sonata form.

ECONOMIST: How Brahms saved music from Wagner