Nintendo Suffers $21M Patent Infringement Award

CowTipperGore writes "The AP reports (via Yahoo!) that Nintendo of America Inc. has been ordered to pay a small East Texas gaming company $21 million for infringing on a patent while designing controllers for its popular Wii and GameCube systems. No stranger to lawsuits over controller designs, a Nintendo spokesman said the company will seek an appeal. The suit was originally filed in 2006 and included Microsoft. Microsoft's aggressive legal push back apparently helped as they reached a (confidential) settlement agreement before the case went to trial."

Patentability

[Azaril]

I know its been said many times before, but how are any of these patentable? A 3d controller with vibration - how can a patent office and a judge believe that qualifies as non-obvious and novel? Not only that, but on all of these controllers surely all of the playstation controllers, the n64 controller, dreamcast constitute prior art?

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I caught it, even if nobody else did...

Re:Patentability

[KDR_11k]

It does not matter if the judge knows that company is a patent troll, there are no laws that say patent trolls cannot sue for infringement and the judge's job is to apply existing law, not create new laws on a whim.

how?

[Dart524]

iv'e never seen a controller by these people how can they have a patent for something that no one has seen or heard about thats like me thinking about making a special kind of rocketship getting a patent then scrap the idea and sue anyone who tries to make the idea

Re:Suffering Succotash

[KDR_11k]

Meh, it's good enough to point out that this was the value awarded, not the value sued for. It comes out to less than a dollar per Wiimote...

Re:how?

[Valcrus]

Thats the problem with the current patent system. You could potentially do just that. Its not fool proof but that is pretty much what these companies are doing. They will buy or create a patent and then sit around until some company makes something close to the patent then sue them and try to get a settlement out of them.

Re:It's the analog shoulder buttons

[Khyber]

You get the exact same feedback from the Super Nintendo controller's shoulder buttons. This company is indeed a patent troll and neds t be labeled as a vexatious litigant.