Nintendo fined $21 million for motion control infringement

[FooFan]

Originally Posted by CVG

Nintendo of America has been ordered to get its cheque book out and pay a small East Texas gaming company $21 million. Apparently the US heavyweight was infringing on a patent while designing controllers for Wii and GameCube.

The AP reports that a federal jury ruled in favour of Anascape Ltd (quiet at the back).

The lawsuit was originally filed way back in 2006. A Nintendo spokesman said the company will seek an appeal and expects the court to reduce the award "significantly."




Looks like the whole thing's about motion control too, with the jury finding that Nintendo infringed on Anascape's patent while designing its Wii Classic, WaveBird and GameCube controllers.

Nintendo said it was pleased no infringement was found with the motion-sensing technology used in its Wii and Nunchuck controllers. Though they may have reminded Anascape where to look next.

Anascape also sued Microsoft for patent infringements on game controllers but reached an agreement with the company before the start of the trial against Nintendo. Terms of that deal are still being kept under lock and key.

Ouch! Although that's probably just spare change to Nintendo at the moment!

Source

[Ricksta7]

haha, Like you say it will hardly put a dent in the old bank balance. Nice find though Foo

[Jaydii]

Oh well as said before Nintendo aren't going to be dented by that, Personally I wouldnt be surprised if Anascape looked deep.. and I mean DEEP! into the design of the companies controllers to find something to take to court. Although well done for Anascape on finding something, hope they find use for Nintendo's hand-me-down pocket money lol.

[Venerable(ish)Bede]

I'd say Nintendo will be able to put off paying the sum for some time judging by the protracted nature of assessing the case. Jury settlements have a habbit of shrinking where you apply the following:

{A - (b*c*d)}/e = F

Where A is the original settlement, b is the turnover of the defending company, c the number of lawyers they are employing, d their hourly charge, e how long the company can afford to wait for an agreement, making F the eventual settlement.

[skyman747]

Wow, looks like this isn't the only lawsuit. I knew I saw this kind of thing before.
Nintendo Wii Remote Breaking Patent Law?

Like they said, $21 Million is nothing to Nintendo. Hell, they have made ALOT more than that on the Wii alone, not to mention GC, N64, SNES, and NES.

[sherlockisback]

This isn't gaining a ton of publicity yet, so that's about the only thing going wrong. Money to them in that sum isn't a huge issue, so I don't think this will mean much long term.

[doylen05]

haha what you meen 21,000,000 isnt alot to nintendo its still going to hurt wither its 21,000,000 or 210 money is still money

[nutter]

but when they are racking in millions of dollars a day... i mean... its not to much

[Caesar]

I'm sure it is for the mini-company.

[Gamer12]

Well! It just a dime for Nintendo. They generated a huge revenue already! So no big deal to them.