Patent Threatens Wii Controllers

By Marcus Yam, published on July 24, 2008 at 2:40 PM
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: , , , , | Themes: The Internet, Business
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A court ruling earlier this week could ban the sale of certain Nintendo Wii and GameCube videogame controllers. U.S. District Judge Ron Clark denied Nintendo’s request for a new trial in a case posed by Anascape Ltd. seeking a halt to the game maker’s alleged activities.

Texas-based Anascape is set to receive $21 million in the suit that named not only Nintendo, but also Sony and Microsoft. Unlike Nintendo, however, Sony and Microsoft chose to settle with Anascape out of court, avoiding the present situation.

Should Nintendo take no action, sales of Nintendo Wii Classic Controllers and all GameCube controllers would be immediately halted. But the games maker is set to see that it not happen.

“Nintendo was already planning to appeal this case to the Federal Circuit court,”Nintendo spokesman Charlie Scibetta said in an email to Bloomberg. “The recent ruling by the trial court does not impact that decision.”

The Anascape patents pertinent to the case include U.S. Patent Numbers 5,999,084; 6,102,802; 6,135,886; 6,208,271; 6,222,525; 6,343,991; 6,344,791; 6,347,997; 6,351,205; 6,400,303; 6,563,415; and 6,906,700. The patents include details on a technology to control six types of motions with the analog sticks.

The loss of the GameCube controllers is of minimal impact to Nintendo, as production has ceased for all previous generation hardware. The Wii Classic Controller, however, is important to Nintendo strategy as many of its downloadable games from the Wii Shop Channel command a more traditional control scheme.

Interestingly, the Wii Remote and Nunchuk – which are the main controllers for the Wii console – are not affected by the suit when not attached to the Wii Classic controller. The Nunchuk has the same analog stick as the Wii Classic controller.

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thogrom 07/24/2008 10:04 PM
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lol thats bullsh*t... why didn't Anascape sue earlier... Nintendo knows they won't lose thats why they didn't settle... anascape is so stupid... nintendo has been using analog sticks for years... if they wanted to effectively get money out of them... they should have done it sooner... its not like they didn't know about the infraction... I mean come on... Anascape is probably in a slump currently at their company (don't say your wrong... I didn't check so I probably am) and is making a last ditch effort to get some money in to re-vitalize themselves

nukemaster 07/24/2008 10:26 PM
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What can you say but, RETARDED.

captaincharisma 07/25/2008 1:37 AM
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ahh, suing companies for patent infringement this is how sad and pathetic U.S. companies have become. anyway the wii is doing so well the 21 million is just lunch money for nintendo now

Darkk 07/25/2008 4:04 AM
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The entire patent system needs to be revamped for modern times. This will only slow down innovation until they fix this problem.

seatrotter 07/25/2008 3:27 PM
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Doesn't the system have some kind of deterrence against frivolous/bogus/harassment suit? Something in the line of paying the defendant any and all cost incurred? Plus additional very heavy penalties should the plaintiff drags his feet in case he stand to lose the case?

LoboBrancoTimido 07/27/2008 1:44 PM
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Analscape wants money and thats about it, one more like Rambus.
(Typo was intended)

Anonymous 07/29/2008 4:11 AM
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NOT THE GAMECUBE CONTROLLER!!!!
classic controler,dont really care...

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