Jury Orders Nintendo to Pay $30 Million In Infringement Case

[Steven Bogos]

As has already bee pointed out: Nintendo didn't develop the 3D screen for the 3DS. Sharp did. If Tomita were to sue anyone, he should have sued Sharp for being the ones to allegedly rip off his idea, not Nintendo for simply buying it and using it in their own handheld.

If AMD rips off your CPU design, you go after AMD, not whichever console manufacturer happens to use AMD parts.

These patent cases are just getting ridiculous. First Samsung and Apple, now Nintendo... these cases need to take place in a court where people know what the fuck is actually being talked about.

Also, there were smartphones coming out with parallax-3D displays months before the 3DS was released. Why didn't Tomita go after any of them?

Because Nintendo is big and smartphone companies that make 3D displays are small (comparatively).

 

[Something Amyss]

wait, you can patent 3d now? gosh, my eyes are infringing on this patent i must close them forever.

Not sure if a joke, a strawman, or you really don't know what's going on.

Wait what?
Is that a typo or is this Tomita guy making a 3DS as well, which SHOULD be copyrighted by nintendo right?

Tomitas, a person, claims that Nintendo, an entity, used the technology he developed for its (given the fact that Tomitas has been established as a "he" it's most likely referencing Nintendo) Nintendo 3DS.

No, he wasn't developing his own console.

 

[Something Amyss]

Why would a Japanese man sue a Japanese company in the US? Because the US system is obviously broken and shit like this can only work there.
A bunch of tech illiterate guys decided that Nintendo infringed a patent by using a completely different technology.

You know, Japan has trod over IP laws for decades, so there's a flip side there. Honestly, it's kind of the reason that Japanese import CDs were heaven for us audiophiles in the 90s. They would release stuff that artists wouldn't let out if there was any choice in the matter.

However, can you confirm he didn't sue in other jurisdictions?

He didn't develop it for the 3DS.

To be fair, DVS is going off the same info the rest of us are. The article here makes it sound like he was working with Nintendo, so the confusion is understandable.

In such circumstances, it'd seem unlikely that the intellectual property rights would have remained with Tamita, as business doesn't work that way (generally speaking).

 

[Zer0Saber]

everyone I know with a 3DS just keeps the 3D off most of the time anyway. I only turn it on for cut-scenes. I don't know the actual number of people who leave it on, but from what I've seen, Nintendo is dishing out big bucks on a feature that's just a novelty.

 

[Fasckira]

I think its passed the stage of appeal though, admittedly not sure. Either way the court has deemed that they are similar enough for the case to go in favour of Tomito.

It was a jury case. ERgo, not an appeal.

I misinterpreted the article, thought they had past both stages and that Nintendo were now at the "Pay now, no buts." stage, contristati.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

A bunch of tech illiterate guys decided that Nintendo infringed a patent by using a completely different technology.

Any other time, I would agree with you 100% & call this blatant patent trolling...

...but Nintendo met with the guy to check out his tech; that complicates the situation a bit. It proves that Nintendo was not only aware of his patent, but also the exact mechanics of it.
Did they just take his design & tweak it enough to not pay him? To what degree was it changed? I haven't read through the patents, so I can't say I know, but the question would have a lot of weight on the case (Not that any of it would mean much to a tech-illiterate jury, so who knows)

 

[LordLundar]

Why would a Japanese man sue a Japanese company in the US? Because the US system is obviously broken and shit like this can only work there.
A bunch of tech illiterate guys decided that Nintendo infringed a patent by using a completely different technology.

I was thinking the same thing. Tomita is Japanese, works for Sony (a Japanese company) and sued Nintendo (A Japanese company) over something that was originally released in Japan. Why else would a US court be involved apart from the Japan courts telling Tomito he's full of it?

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Is Tomita actually doing something with his patent? Is he actually creating something?

If not then he's impeding innovation.

I've heard that the 3D of the 3DS is hard on the eyes and the brain, but at least it's a thing.

Patents are borked. Borked, borked, borked, borked, borked.

238U

 

[OldNewNewOld]

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Any other time, I would agree with you 100% & call this blatant patent trolling...

...but Nintendo met with the guy to check out his tech; that complicates the situation a bit. It proves that Nintendo was not only aware of his patent, but also the exact mechanics of it.
Did they just take his design & tweak it enough to not pay him? To what degree was it changed? I haven't read through the patents, so I can't say I know, but the question would have a lot of weight on the case (Not that any of it would mean much to a tech-illiterate jury, so who knows)

Nintendo didn't even develop the technology they use in the 3DS. They bought the technology from Sharp. And it's a different kind of glassless 3D. If that guy really wanted to sue someone, it should be Sharp because they are the one who broke the patent. But they didn't. Scribblesense explains it.

I doubt Nintendo will pay anything. The technology in the 3DS and the patent Tomita filed are not similar:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=ngetAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA2&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.google.com/patents/EP2063308A1?cl=en&dq=sharp+corporation+parallax&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k4YuUZH1JaTw2QXekYDQBg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ

The first is Tomita's, the second is Sharp Corporation's, which Nintendo is using. Note that Tomita's uses a device which detects the user's position from the device and adjusts the image accordingly, while Sharp Corp's uses a series of manually-adjusted parallax barriers.

They could argue that Nintendo used the 3D camera in Tomita's design, but since it's not part of the whole system I don't think that's applicable.

All in all, $30 million is chump change for this kind of lawsuit and Nintendo will probably just settle rather than drag this out any longer. But I don't think the jury made the right decision here.

 

[Strazdas]

wait, you can patent 3d now? gosh, my eyes are infringing on this patent i must close them forever.

Not sure if a joke, a strawman, or you really don't know what's going on.

the intention was a joke......with a bit of irony on how crap patenting system is.....

 

[RicoADF]

wait, you can patent 3d now? gosh, my eyes are infringing on this patent i must close them forever.

No, but you can infringe on a technology to see 3D objects on a 2D screen without glasses.

on one side i am happy because its a bite at nintendo, on another side i am sad that they allow you to patent such broad terms as ability to see 3d objects on 2d screen.

He didn't patent the ability to see 3D on a 2D screen, he had a patent on a specific system to create that effect which Nintendo allegadly copied after he pitched the idea to them, thus committing theft.