U.K. Court: Wii Guilty of Patent Infringement Against Philips

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Nov 19, 2009
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we all know how this is going to end: a settlement out of court at best. Fact of the matter is that the patent is way too vague and their demands for other regions (including the banning of the Wii and Wii U) is way too extreme to fly. It's just some shlubby company trying to get money out of something in the laziest way possible.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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waj9876 said:
You know what would be nice? If it became required that to have a patent, you actually have to use said patent within a reasonable amount of time. You'd have to release a product that used said patent within two to five years. Failure to do so puts said patent within the public domain.
It is. if you do not use your patent for 20 years its considered lost to disuse and others can create such a product. it is 15 years for pharmaceuticals.
 

Jeroenr

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Nov 20, 2013
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waj9876 said:
You know what would be nice? If it became required that to have a patent, you actually have to use said patent within a reasonable amount of time. You'd have to release a product that used said patent within two to five years. Failure to do so puts said patent within the public domain.

And then once you do release something, you have to pay for said patent on a...let's say a twice a year rate, so if no one buys it someone else can have a chance to buy it from them. As it just becomes a burden on their expenses if they never plan on doing anything about it. "I'll buy patents and sell them to make SO MUCH MONEY! MUAHAHAHA!...Oh shit, no one wants to buy it at my insane price and now it's hurting my expenses. Shit, I've gotta get rid of this."
I don't think that would be a good idea.

for one, companies will release cheap shitty products just to keep the patent.
(see some of the marvel movie licenses)

second, there are companies that only create new tech but aren't in the manufacturing industry.
They make a living of patent revenue, and in a legit way.

But buying patents just to ask money or sue other companies, i think there lies the biggest problem.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Olas said:
So for 20 years, essentially an entire generation and almost as many years as I've been alive, nobody in the world would be allowed to build a cart, wagon, wheel barrel, or anything even related to or based upon these things which were a necessity for most peoples' lives in some way or another.
Well, no. Because patents don't prevent anyone from ever using the technology. And arguing that it's almost as long as you've been alive seems rather pointless. Any human life is a drop in the bucket historically. We've been around in modern form for quite some time.

What are you supposed to do if you're a farmer and your equipment breaks? Do you just die? It would be devastating enough to crash civilization into an early dark age. And you don't see any problem with this at all? If you're not insane then you're deliberately fooling yourself.
This seems to presuppose that the wheel already existed, flourished in multiple civilisations, and was then patented. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any of these problems. But, of course, by that point, a patent wouldn't be an issue.

I couldn't even begin to comprehend what would happen if you did it today.
Nothing, because you couldn't? At most, the impact on society would be an "oddly enough" headline in newspapers where we laughed at the person attempting to patent it. Again: do you understand how patents work? It seems you don't, which could have saved you quite a bit of accusations. Just say you don't. Don't call me insane or accuse me of self-deception because you don't know how patents work.

A patent requires certain criteria, including novelty (wheel wouldn't apply in a modern society) and non-obviousness/inventiveness (also wouldn't apply). It hasn't met the patent requirements for millennia. Further, you have seen governments revoke patents for far less crucial technology.

That's another argument that in no way applies.

At least there was a time in human history when we were able to make due without it.
As there was with the wheel, but this is an interesting statement, since if it were true, it would have meant the wheel could never have been patented, and your argument is once again moot.

You would essentially end the auto-industry, the airline industry, most travel based industries, all industries that rely on mass transit which is nearly all of them to some extent, any businesses that don't do sell primarily to people within walking distance of their stores, the list goes on.
Well, no. I mean, automotive, aviation, aersopace, etc fields all already routinely use numerous patented properties. Hell, let's make this a little simpler: Microsoft and Sony, console "rivals," have both built consoles using patents their "competitor" holds (in whole or part). This should demonstrate how much of a non-issue this is.

This lawsuit isn't about how nobody can ever use Philips' idea ever, but rather that a company can't come along and just use it without royalties. And that's for commercial use. It's been asked why Philips singled out Nintendo and not Sony or Microsoft, but the fact is both companies have a history of actually licensing patents from the owners, while Nintendo has had such lawsuits before. This is not a destructive, costly, or even horrendously difficult process: Nintendo just didn't do it.

Either this would happen or you'd see the rise of a monopoly more enormous and powerful than anything we've seen in human history. I can't even begin to speculate on the societal impact of this because it's a completely unprecedented scenario.
The bigger obstacle should be that it's fiction. Because by the time a property is that integral to society, it's no longer novel enough to qualify for a patent. Given that virtually nothing you've said is true, can you just admit you're wrong instead of coming back with more accusations about my mental faculties and/or honesty?
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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Aiddon said:
we all know how this is going to end: a settlement out of court at best. Fact of the matter is that the patent is way too vague and their demands for other regions (including the banning of the Wii and Wii U) is way too extreme to fly. It's just some shlubby company trying to get money out of something in the laziest way possible.
Well, no, it's not too vague for a patent and their attempts to shut down other markets are addressed by separate lawsuits. Also, it's already been ruled on in this case, so that's moot. Damages are TBD (which, btw, is not the same as banning anything). Other countries will make their ow determinations.

Though the definition of "some shlubby company trying to get money out of something in the laziest way possible" would be apt if aimed at Nintendo.
 

Olas

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Dec 24, 2011
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Zachary Amaranth said:
Olas said:
So for 20 years, essentially an entire generation and almost as many years as I've been alive, nobody in the world would be allowed to build a cart, wagon, wheel barrel, or anything even related to or based upon these things which were a necessity for most peoples' lives in some way or another.
Well, no. Because patents don't prevent anyone from ever using the technology.
I didn't say it would keep people from using the technology, I said it would keep anyone from creating any more of it, which is a problem. This would end any business involved in creating wheels and wheeled technology, stagnate any business that relied upon them, and eventually shrink any business that didn't manage to completely avoid losing or breaking any of it's equipment, something that is guaranteed to happen over time and which businesses always need to account for. And this is just the people directly affected, you can't cripple one part of an ecosystem and think the rest of it will just continue on unaffected.
And arguing that it's almost as long as you've been alive seems rather pointless. Any human life is a drop in the bucket historically. We've been around in modern form for quite some time.
It wasn't an argument, it was an attempt at illustrating how long 20 years is when you were talking about it like it was nothing. 20 years is way more than enough time to irreparably change the world in ways that it cannot quickly recover from, chances are the affects of this ginormous economic and societal collapse would continue to be felt for decades if not centuries afterward. And why are you talking about the entirety of human history anyway? I don't think the people alive at the time when this is happening will care about the rest of human history after their dead.

What are you supposed to do if you're a farmer and your equipment breaks? Do you just die? It would be devastating enough to crash civilization into an early dark age. And you don't see any problem with this at all? If you're not insane then you're deliberately fooling yourself.
This seems to presuppose that the wheel already existed, flourished in multiple civilisations, and was then patented. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any of these problems. But, of course, by that point, a patent wouldn't be an issue.
I almost have to assume these things because the wheel was part of even the earliest civilizations that we know about. Going back to before people used the wheel essentially means going back to when people lived as traveling nomads, at which point even the smallest comparison to contemporary society falls apart. Besides, the main discussion here is about the patenting of a technology that has already existed and flourished, so it only seems appropriate that we assume the same here.

I couldn't even begin to comprehend what would happen if you did it today.
Nothing, because you couldn't? At most, the impact on society would be an "oddly enough" headline in newspapers where we laughed at the person attempting to patent it. Again: do you understand how patents work? It seems you don't, which could have saved you quite a bit of accusations. Just say you don't. Don't call me insane or accuse me of self-deception because you don't know how patents work.

A patent requires certain criteria, including novelty (wheel wouldn't apply in a modern society) and non-obviousness/inventiveness (also wouldn't apply). It hasn't met the patent requirements for millennia. Further, you have seen governments revoke patents for far less crucial technology.

That's another argument that in no way applies.
You don't seem to understand how a theoretical conversation works, which is clearly what this has been since it started. The poster who brought up the topic of patenting the wheel brought it up as an absurd idea that you then seriously replied to. Patenting the wheel at any point in human history, today or in the past, would be impossible for various different reasons depending on the time period, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about it as a "what if" scenario which is entirely what this discussion has been since it started.

At least there was a time in human history when we were able to make due without it.
As there was with the wheel, but this is an interesting statement, since if it were true, it would have meant the wheel could never have been patented, and your argument is once again moot.
By human history I mean the history of human civilization, not the history of homo sapiens as a species, but whatever. My bad for not being more specific, however it doesn't change anything. This isn't a conversation about whether the wheel could actually be patented, obviously it couldn't. Modern patent laws didn't even exist back then, nor could they have been enforced if they did, but this is a theoretical conversation where we're assuming that they can somehow.

You would essentially end the auto-industry, the airline industry, most travel based industries, all industries that rely on mass transit which is nearly all of them to some extent, any businesses that don't do sell primarily to people within walking distance of their stores, the list goes on.
Well, no. I mean, automotive, aviation, aersopace, etc fields all already routinely use numerous patented properties. Hell, let's make this a little simpler: Microsoft and Sony, console "rivals," have both built consoles using patents their "competitor" holds (in whole or part). This should demonstrate how much of a non-issue this is.
Allowing the use of wheels under a license agreement would certainly help, we never discussed the actual terms of the patent so I assumed it would be a patent for exclusive rights. The person holding the patent would still be an enourmous drain on the overall economy (to varying degrees depending on the extent of the royalties paid) without giving anything back, but at least it would still leave the overall economy functional so I'll grant you that.


This lawsuit isn't about how nobody can ever use Philips' idea ever, but rather that a company can't come along and just use it without royalties. And that's for commercial use. It's been asked why Philips singled out Nintendo and not Sony or Microsoft, but the fact is both companies have a history of actually licensing patents from the owners, while Nintendo has had such lawsuits before. This is not a destructive, costly, or even horrendously difficult process: Nintendo just didn't do it.
I'm not defending Nintendo if they stole the idea from Phillips and didn't agree to pay royalties. All I did was question why Phillips waited over 7 years to do something about it when the Wii has been a well known product that has been making a lot of money. Ironically Phillips seems to have waited until Nintendo moved on from the device to actually accuse them of stealing the idea. It seems very fishy, but I'm not saying that Phillips doesn't have a case.

Either this would happen or you'd see the rise of a monopoly more enormous and powerful than anything we've seen in human history. I can't even begin to speculate on the societal impact of this because it's a completely unprecedented scenario.
The bigger obstacle should be that it's fiction. Because by the time a property is that integral to society, it's no longer novel enough to qualify for a patent. Given that virtually nothing you've said is true, can you just admit you're wrong instead of coming back with more accusations about my mental faculties and/or honesty?
This has already been addressed. The entire premise has been fiction since Extradebit brought it up, if you were going to discount the idea of patenting the wheel on the basis that it's impossible, then that should have been your first reply to Extradebit's comment. Instead you claimed you didn't see the harm in patenting the wheel, thus accepting his premise implicitly. The question here is not whether the premise is realistic, but whether the outcome of it would be destructive or not. Your argument was that patenting the wheel wouldn't be a bad thing, saying that it couldn't happen doesn't prove your point.

Finally, while you've mentioned that the wheel is too obvious an invention to patent, I'd like to point out that companies have been trying to patent many really obvious ideas lately. Apple has tried to patent icons with rounded edges. I think the broader point that ExtraDebit was trying to make is how patents can stifle innovation more than they help support it when people try to patent obvious ideas that deserve to be public domain.
 

Qizx

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Feb 21, 2011
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Olas said:
The Wii is 7+ years old, it hasn't even been Nintendo's current gen console in over a year. If Phillips was worried about Nintendo benefitting from their idea why did they wait until now, when Wiimotes are barely being used anymore, to speak up about it?

Zachary Amaranth said:
Wait, Wii has a camera?
Every Wiimote has an infrared light camera that detects the 2 points of infrared light on the Wii sensor bar. That's how it knows where you're pointing it with such precision. It also has a gyroscope built into it for when it's not being aimed directly at the sensor bar, but it's less precise.

ExtraDebit said:
Can you imagine if the wheel was patented?
You mean if, for a few years in human history, someone had exclusive rights to production of the wheel?

...No, I'm not seeing the problem.
Then you must be insane, the wheel has been used in virtually every form of transportation since nearly the dawn of civilization. If people couldn't produce wheels it would grind all the world's trade to a halt. TOf course nobody back then would have actually paid attention to such a nonsense claim as it would be utterly unenforceable.
Completely agree with this, to say that allowing only certain people/companies the rights to something so fundamental as the wheel (even if only for 10 or so years) would have had a COLOSSAL impact. That's all the time you need to set up a monopoly/dynasty.
 

FFMaster

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May 13, 2009
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BigTuk said:
Sadly they kinda already won. UK court has said they infringed, chances are other courts will say the same.
Nah it will go to appeal, and they have a good chance as they have a good argument as to why the patents are invalid in this case. Why is this? Well the courts basically admitted that the patents, as they were at the start of the case, WERE invalid in this case.

Excerpt from Nintendos statement -

"On 20th June 2014, following a trial heard before Mr Justice Birss, the UK Patents Court found that the Wii, Wii U and Wii Remote infringe two patents ('498 and '650) asserted against Nintendo by Philips Electronics," Nintendo explained. "The '498 and '650 patents were held to be invalid as originally granted, but Philips Electronics were permitted to make validating amendments during the course of the litigation."

Now in law you are allowed to make patent changes if they don't change the scope of a patent, but apparently Phillips were allowed to make changes that changed the scope from "Nintendo's stuff doesn't infringe" to "Nintendo does infringe" , DURING the case.

They might have a case during an appeal because of this (not a lawyer so can't say anything on this front).

But to me it smells a bit of changing the contract in the middle of the contract terms.

Nintendos statement hasn't been posted on all sites that post the news yet so it will take a bit of time to trickle down.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Olas said:
I didn't say it would keep people from using the technology, I said it would keep anyone from creating any more of it, which is a problem.
It's also not true.

20 years is way more than enough time to irreparably change the world in ways that it cannot quickly recover from, chances are the affects of this ginormous economic and societal collapse would continue to be felt for decades if not centuries afterward. And why are you talking about the entirety of human history anyway? I don't think the people alive at the time when this is happening will care about the rest of human history after their dead.
The importance of the wheel is built upon generations of use and gradual dependency. If you're not concerned with the whole of human history, then why is there even a problem?

Besides, the main discussion here is about the patenting of a technology that has already existed and flourished, so it only seems appropriate that we assume the same here.
Except the concept in question here is still a relative novelty and was even more so when patented, so that's not true.

You don't seem to understand how a theoretical conversation works, which is clearly what this has been since it started.
I wasn't aware that a "theoretical conversation" allowed people to make shit up as they pleased.

that doesn't mean we can't talk about it as a "what if" scenario which is entirely what this discussion has been since it started.
What if scenarios generally assume some basis in reality. If you cannot make a good faith argument for how it would be damaging, then the hypothetical fails.

By human history I mean the history of human civilization, not the history of homo sapiens as a species, but whatever.
As did I. Don't be dishonest.

Allowing the use of wheels under a license agreement would certainly help
You mean, the exact thing that's relevant to this case (And you brought the relevance factor up, so don't look at me)? You mean, exactly what is done with patents? Exactly what would be the whole purpose to patenting the wheel? YES. It would certainly help. I would say that it would mitigate almost all of your arguments, the only one not mitigated being the one about a money drain below, but then, that was my entire argument because this is what a patent would entail.

we never discussed the actual terms of the patent so I assumed it would be a patent for exclusive rights.
All patents are for exclusive rights. At least, within the relevant definition here. There are certain other types of patents, mostly in an archaic sense, which might fit another bill, but for any intents related here, there is literally no reason to assume the rights wouldn't be exclusive. Except so are the rights to those other patents. Patents are exclusive by their definition. A "patent for exclusive rights" is like saying "a horse-powered horse-drawn cart." No, that does it disservice, since you can actually strap something other than a horse to a cart intended for a horse. It's like saying "light-based laser."

Again, it's fine if you don't know what you're talking about. But you went after me for it, and that's not kosher. This is on par with Ken Ham trying to tell scientists the difference between "historical science" and "observational science." The problem here seems to be that I am discussing patents and you are discussing something else.

And so what if they're exclusive? So are the patents related to flight and aerospace and automotives that were mentioned before.

The person holding the patent would still be an enourmous drain on the overall economy (to varying degrees depending on the extent of the royalties paid) without giving anything back, but at least it would still leave the overall economy functional so I'll grant you that.
Prove an enormous drain. I want to see you prove that claim.

All I did was question why Phillips waited over 7 years to do something about it when the Wii has been a well known product that has been making a lot of money.
Actually, that's not all you did, or this conversation would have been a lot shorter.

Ironically Phillips seems to have waited until Nintendo moved on from the device to actually accuse them of stealing the idea.
Would that have stopped people from complaining? When Nintendo was sued over 3D, people complained then. They seemed mad that it was done early in the console lifespan.

It seems very fishy, but I'm not saying that Phillips doesn't have a case.
It sort of does. I would expect a corporation into money to hit while the console was at its hottest, that way they could extort more money.

The entire premise has been fiction since Extradebit brought it up, if you were going to discount the idea of patenting the wheel on the basis that it's impossible, then that should have been your first reply to Extradebit's comment.
Except I brought it up because of specific relevance to your arguments.

Instead you claimed you didn't see the harm in patenting the wheel, thus accepting his premise implicitly.
Which your argument rendered moot, hence I brought it up. But I didn't accept any science fiction premise implicitly or otherwise. Accepting the notion of the patent of the wheel does not mean accepting a dark dystopian monopoly any more than it means accepting the advent of magic ponies powered by friendship.

If we were speculating on the effect of Europeans not taking hold in North America on the native populations, for example, it holds that we speak of the issues that faced the natives such as disease, the introduction of new concepts, etc. It does not hold that we also assume the presence of ancient alien technology that would turn them into a super society, or the capacity of said peoples to develop completely impractical technology from their current technology.

Painting the concept of a super-monopoly as the outcome is every bit as ridiculous. It does not follow from the original idea. Additionally, since the Philips patents were established within a time frame of relative novelty of the concept in question (they're still infant technology), there is no reason to additionally assume that we need to expand the option to "any point along the line." Philips followed the actual, existing laws of intellectual property, so the hypothetical wheel patent holder doesn't get a free pass.

At best, you've forced an additional step here. If the wheel was patented, according to the real-world definitions and limitations on a patent, little would change and it would almost certainly be business as usual. The horror seems to come in when the wheel is patented and that patent is no longer a patent. For example, what happens if the wheel was patented and patent exclusivity prevented actual manufacture during the time period. and that wasn't the original hypothetical you keep telling me I don't understand. Patents have limitations, and if you are going to ignore them (or simply don't understand them), then you're not really exploring the same hypothetical.

You can't call me insane or self-deceptive if you add criteria that are not part of the same base assumption.