Nintendo Triumphs Over Two Patent Trolls

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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Nintendo Triumphs Over Two Patent Trolls


Two U.S courts have ruled in Nintendo's favor on two separate patent infringement cases.

While patent infringement lawsuits are occasionally due to one company or individual legitimately ripping off another, more often than not, it's simply patent trolls [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll] making rather questionable claims. This time, Nintendo has triumphed over Creative Kingdom, who claimed Nintendo's Wiimote technology was lifted from "magic wand" toys developed for use in theme parks, and UltimatePointer, who claimed the Wiimote infringed on two patents regarding wireless "direct pointing devices."

The later case was decided by the The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, while the former was handled by the the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

"We are pleased with the court's determination," said Richard Medway, vice president and deputy general counsel for Nintendo of America, in a prepared statement. "Nintendo's track record demonstrates that we vigorously defend patent lawsuits, particularly when the patents are being stretched beyond the inventors' ideas. Nintendo continues to develop unique and innovative products while respecting the intellectual property rights of others."

Additionally, Medway stressed that "we do not, nor have we ever, infringed these patents. The result in this case, once again, demonstrates that Nintendo will continue to vigorously defend its innovations against patent lawsuits, even if it must do so in multiple courts and commit significant resources to defend itself. Nintendo continues to support reform efforts to reduce the unnecessary and inefficient burden patent cases like this one place on technology companies in the United States."

Source: Nintendo [http://www.polygon.com/2014/12/23/7443993/nintendo-patent-disputes-wii-creative-kingdoms-ultimatepointer]

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Nov 28, 2007
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Good. I mean, patents for wireless "direct pointing devices"? If they had ruled AGAINST Nintendo on that, that patent troll would be able to sue every single remote control manufacturer ever. Yeah, bull fucking shit. good on ya, Court of Appeals, and I don't say that often.
 

Alfredo Jones

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Jul 1, 2013
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I doubt anyone besides the inventor of the television remote would have a chance at winning a patent lawsuit against Nintendo concerning the Wiimote.
 

Alexander Kirby

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It's funny how these lawsuits always come out way after the product was released, after they know it sold well and they can claim some high "damages".
 

Zontar

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I don't see how the US hasn't done what we've done here in Quebec and outlawed such frivolous lawsuits. Patent trolling, and really any lawsuit which you know you will loose because you have no case, carried the type of fine that makes profiting from it impossible. My god, with the stereotypes of the Yanky business man I'm amazed you guys down south aren't a decade ahead of the rest of us when it comes to these laws.
 

Kenjitsuka

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Like EVERY other lawsuit in the world ever; a win for the lawyers. They walk away with obscene hourly wages, no matter what the outcome was!!!

"even if it must do so in multiple courts and commit significant resources to defend itself"........ :'(
 

Signa

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I think this video sums up the situation with the troll quite nicely.

 

Kahani

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T-Shirt Turtle said:
I doubt anyone besides the inventor of the television remote would have a chance at winning a patent lawsuit against Nintendo concerning the Wiimote.
Your doubt is severely misplaced. TV remotes work (until recently with bluetooth and similar becoming more common) by shining an infra-red light (older ones used ultrasound )at a receiver, with a pattern encoded telling the TV what to do. A Wiimote works by using an accelerometer and a motion sensor using a camera to locate LEDs on the console to figure out the location and orientation of the remote, and bluetooth to transmit that to the console. The two devices have virtually nothing in common, and a TV remote would certainly not constitute prior art to invalidate patents related to the Wiimote. Which is why Nintendo of course have multiple patents for the technology.

The question here has absolutely nothing to do with TV remotes or prior art at all. The only question is whether the patents being sued over actually covered the technology Nintendo used. As it turns out, they don't. If someone had actually come up with the ideas used in the Wiimote before Nintendo did (such as Gyration Inc, who actually did which is why Nintendo paid for licenses to use them), the lawsuit could have been perfectly valid.
 

immortalfrieza

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Zontar said:
I don't see how the US hasn't done what we've done here in Quebec and outlawed such frivolous lawsuits. Patent trolling, and really any lawsuit which you know you will loose because you have no case, carried the type of fine that makes profiting from it impossible. My god, with the stereotypes of the Yanky business man I'm amazed you guys down south aren't a decade ahead of the rest of us when it comes to these laws.
The reason what you suggest hasn't happened over here is because lots and lots of people, especially corporations, make WAAAAAAY too much money from suing the pants off anyone and everyone for the most frivolous if not outright false reasons and somehow managing to win anyway a good enough percentage of the time for that to ever happen. Since these corporations and rich are the ones that have the actual power in the US they both created that sort of system so they could do this and make sure this system stays in place. The only thing that balances this at all is that these rich and corporations can get just as screwed from other rich people and corporations suing them.

However, the little guys, which most of these sorts of lawsuits are usually directed at, have pretty much no chance of defending themselves at all against even the most frivolous lawsuits possible, the system is designed so that only the ones that have real money can even do anything due to the massive legal fees needed to get competent defense that are a drop in the bucket for the rich but are crippling for anyone else. If Nintendo wasn't a big time corporation they would have been royally screwed long before either of these got as far along as they did.
 

mad825

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Kahani said:
Your doubt is severely misplaced. TV remotes work (until recently with bluetooth and similar becoming more common) by shining an infra-red light (older ones used ultrasound )at a receiver, with a pattern encoded telling the TV what to do. A Wiimote works by using an accelerometer and a motion sensor using a camera to locate LEDs on the console to figure out the location and orientation of the remote, and bluetooth to transmit that to the console.
Oh, it also uses Infra-red.

Have you not ever owned one before? Have you not ever read the instructions manual? Lolwat, what LEDs? What camera? They don't exist.
 

Alorha

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mad825 said:
Have you not ever owned one before? Have you not ever read the instructions manual? Lolwat, what LEDs? What camera? They don't exist.
LEDs are on that little bar that you set on the TV and hook up to the console. The camera is in the front of the wii-mote. The guy's description of the tech is spot-on. Have -you- ever owned one before.
 

mad825

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Alorha said:
mad825 said:
Have you not ever owned one before? Have you not ever read the instructions manual? Lolwat, what LEDs? What camera? They don't exist.
LEDs are on that little bar that you set on the TV and hook up to the console. The camera is in the front of the wii-mote. The guy's description of the tech is spot-on. Have -you- ever owned one before.
The sensor bar is infra-red, the "in the front of the wii-mote" is also infa-red. In this case, the sensor bar is the sender and the Wii remote is the receiver.

You realise that those LEDs uses Infra-red right? No different to a TV...Right? The tech is not new.
 

Pyrian

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mad825 said:
Lolwat, what LEDs? What camera? They don't exist.
mad825 said:
You realise that those LEDs uses Infra-red right?
The ones you claimed don't exist? Received by the camera you claimed doesn't exist? And BTW, there's a substantial difference between a simple detector and a camera, and between flash codes and positional tracking.
 

Booklover13

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mad825 said:
Alorha said:
mad825 said:
Have you not ever owned one before? Have you not ever read the instructions manual? Lolwat, what LEDs? What camera? They don't exist.
LEDs are on that little bar that you set on the TV and hook up to the console. The camera is in the front of the wii-mote. The guy's description of the tech is spot-on. Have -you- ever owned one before.
The sensor bar is infra-red, the "in the front of the wii-mote" is also infa-red. In this case, the sensor bar is the sender and the Wii remote is the receiver.

You realise that those LEDs uses Infra-red right? No different to a TV...Right? The tech is not new.
Regardless of how TV remotes and Wii remotes work, the TV remotes' inventor has no case. Patents aren't copyrights, they actually end. The life-span of a patent in the US is ~20 years. After that they are free game. So even if the Wii is using that infra-red technology, it is not actionable since that patent died out years ago.
 

VincentX3

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Glad that they won.
Usually I'd vote for the underdog when it's against a mega-corporation but yea, not this time.

Seriously? How much of a fucking retard do you have to be to sue over "direct pointing devices"? You might as well as sue all the TV company's for the use of the remote then.

All in all, I'm glad that Nintendo won.
 

Blaze the Dragon

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Alexander Kirby said:
It's funny how these lawsuits always come out way after the product was released, after they know it sold well and they can claim some high "damages".
Imo, there should be some kind of timer or something on how long you can wait before it's been too long to claim a patent violation. Like a couple years or so. After all, it's not like this was a hidden device that snuck through between the cracks. If it were legitimate, they would've called out Nintendo on this before the console was even released.
 

Sanunes

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Didn't Nintendo also win another Patent Lawsuit not too long ago and basically was awarded the company as their damages because they couldn't afford the judgement against them?
 

direkiller

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Kenjitsuka said:
Like EVERY other lawsuit in the world ever; a win for the lawyers. They walk away with obscene hourly wages, no matter what the outcome was!!!

"even if it must do so in multiple courts and commit significant resources to defend itself"........ :'(
Nintendo and Creative Kingdoms are big enough to have lawyers on staff and would get payed the same regardless, so the court fees are the only thing here.
I also have a feeling the Creative kingdoms lawsuit was more about patent protection then legitimate trolling. Multi-million dollar company's don't tend to be in the patent trolling sector.
 

FalloutJack

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I have no idea why they would bother. It's like a Garry's Incident with a major corporation. In short, laughable.