Nintendo Sued Over Wii Motion Controls

[Starke]

I'm going to go with President Ford on this one:

''We do NOT negotiate with Patent Trolls!''

Yeah, unfortunately even Harrison Ford knows this isn't patent trolling, and now he's messing with you.

>Vaguest patent idea possibly relating to Wii Motion Controls
>waits 5 years to file a claim
>sues everyone even remotely related to it
>not a troll

Get off my plane.

>Actually involved in marketing a product.
>No transfer of patent ownership.
>Delay between becoming aware of the infringement, and a lawsuit.
>You know, things you don't see from patent trolls.
>Brings a banana to a gunfight... um... okay.

A banana can be handy in a gunfight. Rich in potassium and a key source of fibre while still being delicious. Plus it's a great distraction. Anyway, the most valuable thing you can have in a gunfight is a mate, one more person to fight and one more person they are shooting at other than you!

Also, BUUUUUULSHITE there was a "delay in becoming aware of infringement". Something like that is classic Patent Trolling. Everyone has known what the Nintendo Wii is for the past half-decade.

Yeah, but you covered this later.

The point is, yes, they did know what the Wii was, but not, you know, how it worked. But we'll get to that.

If every patent troll got their way, we'd still be in the stone age with some bastard demanding 20% of all food that is cooked by fire.

And if every idiot was banned from using the internet I'd be very lonely online.

Patents should be for INVENTIONS not vague ideas. Anyone can have an idea, but an idea that WORKS! Like patenting a lightbulb design using a carbon-filament treated in a certain way. Not the "idea" of somehow using electric current to generate light. There is a valid patent for a levitating car, the holder has no idea how to make a levitating car but whoever does figure it out must pay that twerp whatever they demand because "Huuur, I had the idea first"

Yes, they are. The method Nintendo used was either close enough to, or identical to the method this patent protects for this to have been cited against Nintendo. And again, it's not them saying "huuur, I had the idea first," it's "huuur, I filed for the patent first." Which means that unless Nintendo can prove they stole the idea from them, or that the patent citation five years ago was invalid, they pretty much decided to sit in a corner, shit themselves, and say "huuur, I'm Nintendo, no one can fuck with me because they're afraid of the stench."

By the way, they filed for this patent in summer 2005. The same time Nintendo hosted the Wii at E3.

And yet, when Nintendo filed for their patent, they had this one cited against them. That is to say, these people were filing for a patent, while Nintendo was doing marketing with unpatented hardware. That is about sixteen kinds of stupid. But, again, if this were some kind of trolling, they would have had to look at the Wii, psychically know how it processed movement, and then filed a patent before Nintendo could, on their own work.

Finally, and here's the real bullshit coming out of your post. A patent troll is a company that owns patents, that's HOW THEY MAKE THEIR MONEY. They don't go into production with the shit they own patents to, they license the patents out, or they sue. It costs one metric fuck ton to produce consumer electronics, especially niche gadgety shit like this. Patents aren't like trademarks, if you patent something, and just sit on it, it does NOT go into the public domain any faster.

The other part, and this is the fucking mindblowing part from a legal standpoint is, Nintendo applied for a patent, were denied because their application had an already awarded patent cited against them, and they went ahead with the roll out anyway. Now maybe this was a cultural misunderstanding by a manager in Japan who didn't realize this mattered, but this is grade A stupid by any measure.

 

[devilmank]

I think it's obvious why they want to sue them.

It's the only way their idiotic little gadget will make money!

It's essencially a mouse for a PC that works like a WiiMote. Anyone who's tried to use their Wiimote to surf the internet knows what a pain that is. The difference is that being a portable mouse isn't the Wiimote's primary function, whereas this is the Wavit's ONLY function! These morons came up with an idiotic, overly complicated mouse and were shocked to realize that nobody wanted to give up the ease and comfort of their regular mouse for an awkward little pointer. Now, five years later, these idiots have sunk all their resourses into one device and are seeing nothing for it.

But wait, says one idiot, The Wii just so happened to come out the same year we made the Wavit. If we patented it first, we can sue Nintendo for the rights and make an assload of cash. And why stop there? Lets sue everyone who makes third-party peripherals for the Wii too and make more money.

I prey to Kaiser that these morons lose. Mediocrity should not be rewarded. Let's all hope that Nintendo has their paperworks together enough to whup these morons asses.

 

[Treblaine]

Patents should be for INVENTIONS not vague ideas. Anyone can have an idea, but an idea that WORKS! Like patenting a lightbulb design using a carbon-filament treated in a certain way. Not the "idea" of somehow using electric current to generate light. There is a valid patent for a levitating car, the holder has no idea how to make a levitating car but whoever does figure it out must pay that twerp whatever they demand because "Huuur, I had the idea first"

Yes, they are. The method Nintendo used was either close enough to, or identical to the method this patent protects for this to have been cited against Nintendo. And again, it's not them saying "huuur, I had the idea first," it's "huuur, I filed for the patent first." Which means that unless Nintendo can prove they stole the idea from them, or that the patent citation five years ago was invalid, they pretty much decided to sit in a corner, shit themselves, and say "huuur, I'm Nintendo, no one can fuck with me because they're afraid of the stench."

By the way, they filed for this patent in summer 2005. The same time Nintendo hosted the Wii at E3.

And yet, when Nintendo filed for their patent, they had this one cited against them. That is to say, these people were filing for a patent, while Nintendo was doing marketing with unpatented hardware. That is about sixteen kinds of stupid. But, again, if this were some kind of trolling, they would have had to look at the Wii, psychically know how it processed movement, and then filed a patent before Nintendo could, on their own work.

Finally, and here's the real bullshit coming out of your post. A patent troll is a company that owns patents, that's HOW THEY MAKE THEIR MONEY. They don't go into production with the shit they own patents to, they license the patents out, or they sue. It costs one metric fuck ton to produce consumer electronics, especially niche gadgety shit like this. Patents aren't like trademarks, if you patent something, and just sit on it, it does NOT go into the public domain any faster.

The other part, and this is the fucking mindblowing part from a legal standpoint is, Nintendo applied for a patent, were denied because their application had an already awarded patent cited against them, and they went ahead with the roll out anyway. Now maybe this was a cultural misunderstanding by a manager in Japan who didn't realize this mattered, but this is grade A stupid by any measure.

The problem with patents is they HAVE to be public, and that can betray your whole strategy.

So Nintendo developed this technology a whole two years in advance, and before this patent was filed at E3 Nintendo did test a live demonstration but they didn't consider the prototype ready for the public. Plenty of opportunity to steal the idea. or maybe it was jsut a case of convergence, either way, Nintendo had a product ready and rearing to go, they had more than an idea, they had a whole invention ready to actually be sold. You know, what patents are supposedly there to protect!

So Nintendo got fucked not because they didn't put in the hard work, they did, but because some troll beat them to the patent-office's rubber stamp.

And though you are happy to directly call me an idiot, you are idiotic enough to defend these guys to have somehow taken FIVE YEARS to realise the functionality of the single biggest selling home electronics device of the past decade! No one is that stupid.

I'll tell you what I think, Wavit KNOW that Nintendo have prior art on them. But Maybe they need the money now and they are trying to cash in on the broken patent system. Wavit may have a remote, but that's just a part of what makes a gaming system. You really think Nintendo should have just given up when Wavit beat them to the stamp? You think Wavit could have created a games console as good and as successful as the Wii? It's an integral part but it's not all there is.

I don't see the point in patents. So many people work so hard only to be beaten to the patent office by someone who "somehow" came up with the same idea. Convergent discoveries? Plagiarism? Does it matter? It's holding back progress.

 

[devilmank]

Ever use your Wiimote to surf the net on your Wii? It's like that. Only for actual computors.

 

[Starke]

The problem with patents is they HAVE to be public, and that can betray your whole strategy.

So Nintendo developed this technology a whole two years in advance, and before this patent was filed at E3 Nintendo did test a live demonstration but they didn't consider the prototype ready for the public. Plenty of opportunity to steal the idea. or maybe it was jsut a case of convergence, either way, Nintendo had a product ready and rearing to go, they had more than an idea, they had a whole invention ready to actually be sold. You know, what patents are supposedly there to protect!

While it's true that patents have to be public, not patenting something because you want to maintain the surprise, or because you want to protect a marketing strategy is still grade A stupid. It means that from the time you get a workable design, to the time you want to release a product, anyone else working on a similar project could come along and patent your invention, or patent something close enough to your invention that your product would have to be licensed. After you've spent the money on R&D, not securing the results of your work is just plain massively stupid.

So, either the '05 E3 was a demonstration of Nintendo having the business sense or a lobotomized iguana or it was a mockup and the tech wasn't really there yet, which does in fact happen at trade shows. I don't know which it was.

So Nintendo got fucked not because they didn't put in the hard work, they did, but because some troll beat them to the patent-office's rubber stamp.

Again, this assumes that Nintendo disclosed some pretty sophisticated information about how the Wii proceeded data specifically, and then DID NOT PATENT IT, or even apply for the patent before showing it to the public. So, again, either someone at Nintendo was criminally incompetent, and the company that did this possessed psychic powers and slurped down the brainwaves of Nintendo techs at E3. OR, this was, as you point out, a case of convergence.

And though you are happy to directly call me an idiot, you are idiotic enough to defend these guys to have somehow taken FIVE YEARS to realise the functionality of the single biggest selling home electronics device of the past decade! No one is that stupid.

I did nothing of the sort. Though if you'd like to stand up and be counted among those numbers, far be it from me to deny you.

You were however making a "if things were different, they just wouldn't be the same" argument, which are, on their face, pretty much invalid.

A thing about lawsuits, and this is kinda critical. When a lawsuit like this makes headlines is when the case is filed. This isn't when a suit starts, however. Under normal circumstances a lawsuit can easily percolate for years of negotiations before a case ever begins. If a case is settled before it's filed, it's pretty rare anyone will ever no anything about it outside of the participants, and it's not at all uncommon for negotiations during torts to run right up to the filing deadline.

So, for someone who doesn't understand civil law, it's pretty easy to look at something like this and say, well they were fuckin' around for five years, but anyone with even a few undergraduate law classes under their belt can tell you, this is actually the norm, unless one of the parties decides they don't want to play ball.

While it's somewhat of an estimate, it's entirely likely they found out about this in '08, and this has been percolating for the last three years, both through investigation and negotiations, and either the negotiations broke down, Nintendo told them they could to fuck themselves, or some deadline for filing the case was rapidly approaching.

Ironically, patent trolls tend to go to court quickly because they are less interested in negotiated settlements, and more interested in jury awards, because the latter tends to favor them more.

I'll tell you what I think, Wavit KNOW that Nintendo have prior art on them. But Maybe they need the money now and they are trying to cash in on the broken patent system. Wavit may have a remote, but that's just a part of what makes a gaming system. You really think Nintendo should have just given up when Wavit beat them to the stamp? You think Wavit could have created a games console as good and as successful as the Wii? It's an integral part but it's not all there is.

Funny thing, trade secrets are actually excluded from prior art claims, at least in the US. So, if Nintendo was trying to keep the Wii under wraps, they actually lost the ability to claim prior art. Again, with patent law, it doesn't matter who started working on an invention first, just who finished their design and filed first.

I don't see the point in patents. So many people work so hard only to be beaten to the patent office by someone who "somehow" came up with the same idea. Convergent discoveries? Plagiarism? Does it matter? It's holding back progress.

Software patents? Sure. Some high level technical stuff edges into that range as well, but in general, patents provide a financial incentive to advance technology, of any flavor. The conventional argument goes that if you spend $10m inventing something that costs $0.35 to make, and the guy across the street can make it the instant you're done with it, why bother?

Patents provide a short term protection for a given method of doing something. And that's something that's kind of critical here. Patents aren't forever. They expire after a couple decades and transition into public domain. And, while this does cause problems in the pharmaceutical industry, for the most part it generally ensures that shit like this IS a short term problem at worst.

So, in short, patents provide financial protection for technological advancement.

 

[MB202]

Wavit Remote? Never heard of them... Which is probably why they sued Nintendo.

 

[algalon]

I predict that the E.T. burial site will soon be repurposed. Nintendo and Wal-Mart will dismember ThinkOptics like hungry sharks, leaving Sony and MS to feed off the remains in case it attempts to make an aggressive move or glance. Motion controls are just a piece of modern tech that everyone is invested in. It's like suing Vizio for using liquid crystals, or Paramount for printing films on "compressed disk-shaped media". Some things are just too big. I really hope Obama's new bill kills frivolous lawsuits like this.

 

[ServebotFrank]

Strange. I mean, the odds of this company winning do not seem very good at all. Nintendo has basically moved onto the Wii U. And Sony's motion controller is basically the same gimmick with the only difference being a color changing ball versus infrared.

Good luck to them.

Also, all the hate on Nintendo in this thread is ridiculous. Even if they lost, there is virtually no incentive for them to change how they make certain games. We haven't seen a big Zelda title in 6 years. I know it's basically the same as the Nintendo 64 titles, but who really cares. No one has any right to ***** about it when you think about all the companies that do that same thing, just much more often (BF, CoD, etc.). No to mention, Zelda title tend to be really awesome and fun to play with lots of open world exploration. I mean, Zelda has been open world since the first iteration of it.

Most of the people hating on Nintendo are only doing it because Yahtzee does it. I've noticed that alot of the people on this site will just bring Yahtzee's points up when most of time his opinions should be taken as seriously as Jack Thompson in a chicken suit.

OT: This is ridiculous there should be rules on this sort of thing this just wastes money on a un-winnable case.

 

[James Raynor]

On one hand it's obviously a troll.....

On the other I reeeeeally want to see Nintendo drop the gimmicky wii motion controls.

 

[Treblaine]

Software patents? Sure. Some high level technical stuff edges into that range as well, but in general, patents provide a financial incentive to advance technology, of any flavor. The conventional argument goes that if you spend $10m inventing something that costs $0.35 to make, and the guy across the street can make it the instant you're done with it, why bother?

Patents provide a short term protection for a given method of doing something. And that's something that's kind of critical here. Patents aren't forever. They expire after a couple decades and transition into public domain. And, while this does cause problems in the pharmaceutical industry, for the most part it generally ensures that shit like this IS a short term problem at worst.

So, in short, patents provide financial protection for technological advancement.

Yeah, well things have obviously gone fucked up here as Nintendo invested all this money in R&D yet they are being sued for making and selling a product THAT THEY DESIGNED!

Who cares if this patent expires in 30 years, Nintendo can't wait for 30 years for Wavit to make fail-attempts at motion gaming. That is too god damn long, if we had to wait 30 years for an expiry on the monopoly on innovation that slows the pace of progress to medieval levels.

The problem is these days devices are made up of so many different distinct components, one part being critical but by itself is useless. So ThinkOptics greedily wanting this tech all for themselves is not going to mean they make the Wii instead, the Wii is so much more than just the Wii-mote yet without it it isn't the wii.

But most notably of how utterly redundant and pointless patents are: The Wii did so well without a patent. Doesn't this show how pointless patents are?

These companies operate in completely different and non-competing space. Nintendo exclusively for their console (where ThinkOptics have no stake nor interest nor anything) and ThinkOptics as a PC Peripheral (Where nintendo has no stake, nor interest nor anything).

This patent trolling achieves nothing but the GREAT being dragged down by the SMALL!

 

[The Lugz]

PLEASE SUE RAZOR AS WELL!! they made a wiimote for the pc. also they suck, does that count? it must count.

( I don't like razor they sell overpriced pointless crap, there becoming apple mark 2 )

 

[Captain Bobbossa]

I think this is great news. Nintendo really just needs to realise it's to old and to senial for this now, hand in it's guns and find a nice retirement home somewhere.

 

[kwagamon]

Just idiots suing something successful because they want some free money. Nintendo had a good idea that while it's been done in similar forms before had never been a main part of the console, and now that it's a mega-hit with an audience that gaming consoles used to only rarely reach these guys (who's technology probably barely affected Nintendo's design and they just both had the same idea) want to get a cut of the profit that they've done nothing to deserve.

 

[SD-Fiend]

I hope that nintendo loses so they will finally drop their rehashes and do original stuff.


*raises fist in air* DAM IT NINTENDO STOP MAKING GIMMICKS AND FUCKING REHASHES.Serious>I hope that their new zelda games will fail horribly,and the rest of the rehshes & the WII U.

excuse me but what is your definition of original?

 

[Tanfastic]

The only good thing Nintendo has rehashed in the past couple years is Pokemon and Zelda. Which will most likely always be well done, I was disappointed by Galaxy 2 and DK country returns. Hopefully when they rehash in the future they put a lot of good ideas and time into it.

OT: this is the equivalent of Nintendo suing Sony for their Wii with bright balls at the end. They should just stop, also their website's sound when you mouse over something is atrocious.

 

[PinkiePyro]

this whole thing is just freaking stupid troll company is troll

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

I hope that nintendo loses so they will finally drop their rehashes and do original stuff.

I hope that nintendo loses so they will finally drop their rehashes and do original stuff.

You realize this would make more rehashes, right?

Why put out more money on an original idea that might not sell when you can put out a few Mario titles and make a few million in the process?

It's far easier and cheaper to do anything that has an established base than it is to go from scratch.

*raises fist in air* DAM IT NINTENDO STOP MAKING GIMMICKS AND FUCKING REHASHES.Serious>I hope that their new zelda games will fail horribly,and the rest of the rehshes & the WII U.

Hope you don't play CoD, Halo, or a Madden game or you are eating your own words.

 

[tk1989]

There really has to be a clause in these ccpyright and patent laws that says if a claim isn't filed within 1-2 years of the offending product's launch, than it is automatically invalid.

Wouldnt that be in conflict to the whole idea of filing a patent in the first place? There have been many cases where patented ideas have been used unbeknownst by the patentee by rival groups for years before being found out.

Granted, this whole thing seems very fishy... I mean, its not like the Wii is a random unknown product, everyone knows about it. In no way would this product have gone unnoticed by the company if they hold a patent that would allow them to take such action against it.

 

[orangeapples]

Now I'm not a legal expert, but I went to the ThinkOptics website, and they started in 2006. The wii remote itself was revealed in 2005 with development of the thing going as far back as 2001. Everything about thinkoptics points to it being developed AFTER the Wii Remote. Also, ThinkOptics is still waiting for the patent to clear...

And I don't really know how ThinkOptics wavit works, but from everything I am seeing on the site, it does not operate by triangulating its position by the use of a series of IR indicators.