Wii controller lawsuit costs Nintendo $21m
Texas firms sues Nintendo, and wins!
Nintendo has vowed to fight a court order demanding it pay $21m (£10.7m/€13.5m) to a US gaming company for patent infringements associated with controllers for the Wii and GameCube.
Although specific details of the violation of Anascape's intellectual property rights haven’t been disclosed yet, the US court found that Nintendo had trampled over 12 different patents owned by the Texas-based firm.
The company owns a number of controller patents, ranging from one detailing a stick-type remote controller with analogue pressure sensor(s) through to a patent for a regular-looking game controller with analogue pressure sensors.
Several Nintendo controllers were implicated in the case, including the Wii Classic controller and GameCube control. Nintendo is thought safe on the motion-sensor side of things though, because the patent infringements don’t relate to any accelerometer technology used in Wii controllers.
But a Nintendo spokesman has since claimed that, after it appeals the ruling, the company expects the damages awarded to be “significantly” reduced.
At least Nintendo’s executives can use the boxing game on Wii Sports to vent some of their money-loss rage.
Microsoft was also sued by Anascape, the smaller company's lawyers said, but settled out of court ahead of the Nintendo trial. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
COMMENTS
Analogue?
As far as I know only the playstation and controllers have analogue buttons (triggers in the xbox case). The gamecube controller had abxy (or whatever) that were purely digital, they had two clicks in the shoulder buttons, but I think they're digital, they only have 2 sensitivities.
oh dear
"At least Nintendo’s executives can use the boxing game on Wii Sports to vent some of their money-loss rage."
who on earth thought of this line? this is 'journalism' straight out of the The Sun!
Analogue Triggers
So by "analogue pressure sensors" it seems it's the analogue triggers that are the target of this suit. I'd have thought the neGcon controller that Namco made for the PS1 would have qualified as prior art (since Anascape's patents are dated from '97 onwards and the neGcon is from around the PS1's launch in '94).
More can be found on the neGcon here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negcon
Further proof that Mark is incapable of basic reading comprehension
Only the Nintendo suit has been completed; there is nothing to report in the Microsoft case yet.
But then, giving that Mark considers it to be Xbox fanboyism for there to be a single story on the entire Register site that doesn't desperately scramble to shoehorn a mention of the RROD in, what do you expect. Seek professional help, Mark; it's not funny any more.
Mark Smells
of Sony fanboism
and the fatty sweat he generates from frantically responding to every post on the internet that could possibly say something bad about sony
waaaaaah
