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Yet Another Nintendo Controller Suit
Just three months after a federal court ordered Nintendo to pay $21 million for controller patent infringements, a new party intends to take the game maker to court.
Hillcrest Laboratories said Nintendo has infringed on patents pertaining to motion control technology and graphical interface software, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
A complaint filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission says that Maryland-based Hillcrest seeks to block Wii and Wii Remote imports from Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo.
The plaintiff said in a statement, "While Hillcrest Labs has a great deal of respect for Nintendo and the Wii, Hillcrest Labs believes that Nintendo is in clear violation of its patents and has taken this action to protect its intellectual property rights."
Bloomberg notes that the ITC has the authority to block imports of patent-infringing products.
For now, the ITC will investigate the complaint, a process that could take 15 months before a decision is reached.
Nintendo currently has product-related lawsuits pending in Texas, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Wilmington, Delaware.
It's like when you the million $ lottery. Suddenly, family members you didn't know you had show up on your doorstep looking for a cut. Wii makes billions, suddenly EVERYONE has patented motion-sensing technology.
I think this, and similar cases being brought up on a near daily basis, prove that it is a bad idea to try and innovate, reimagine, or otherwise do cool stuff because someone will sue you for it.
I think we should stop any and all innovation and leave it to the Chinese black market, where it belongs.
@ E. Zachary Knight -
I think your second paragraph pretty much summed it up. These patent trolls see Nintendo's quarterly earnings in the billions and just so happen to have some somewhat similar tech lying around and then have the great idea to jump on the money train express.
Just looking at the product description on their website, they may have a valid claim. But they do not list the actual technology used in their motion control. So it is still up for anyone's guess.
As for the comments in my first paragraph, I was speaking in legal terms. It is a pain legally to be in the console business. If you wanted clarification.
It seems to be getting to the point where it is pointless to be in the hardware business. It seems that in order to protect yourself enough you have to license upwards of a million patents, even if you are not sure if you are using any of the technology, just to avoid any lawsuit.
But of course, this could just be another case of, "They are making millions off a product that is vaguely like one of ours. Let's see if we can convince a judge that they are close enough to get a share of those millions."