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Nintendo Businesses Patents The Almighty Buck The Courts United States Wii

Court Overturns Patent Ruling That Would've Cost Nintendo $10 Million (engadget.com) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the lengthy-legal-sagas dept.
After almost seven years, Nintendo has won a patent case that involved the original Wii. On Tuesday, the company announced that a federal court in Dallas ruled in its favor against iLife Technologies, overturning an earlier 2017 decision that would have forced Nintendo to pay out $10.1 million in damages. Engadget reports: The original suit, which was brought against Nintendo of America in 2013, alleged that the company used iLife's technology to create the Wii's motion-sensing controller. The patent that was at the center of the case described a technology designed to detect when a person falls and monitor babies for symptoms of sudden infant death syndrome. iLife had initially sought $144 million in total damages and an injunction against Nintendo. In this latest ruling, however, the court decided that iLife's claim wasn't specific enough.
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Court Overturns Patent Ruling That Would've Cost Nintendo $10 Million More

Court Overturns Patent Ruling That Would've Cost Nintendo $10 Million

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  • Or as Nintendo no doubt calls it, the Switch.

  • If when it comes to actually enforcing them and significant sums of money, the judiciary just folds like a cheap tent.

    • Re:What's the Point of Patents (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Luthair ( 847766 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @08:34AM (#59643974)
      All 6 patents were invalidated, so maybe don't file shitty patents and you can enforce them.

      • so maybe don't file shitty patents and you can enforce them

        It gets down to what you can convince a judge and jury to think.

        I remember, from many years ago, reading about a dispute over whether a home automation controller with a DTMF decoder and landline telephone interface is prior art for a home automation controller with a DTMF decoder and a cellphone module. Either unit could receive a phone call from any phone - landline or cellphone - and you push the number buttons on the phone to command the automation system. One side claimed that switching out the landlin

    • Re:What's the Point of Patents (Score:5, Informative)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @08:45AM (#59643994) Homepage

      The patent was a body-mounted devices that sensed sudden motion from falling. Claiming the Wii motion sensors infringed on this feels like an overly broad interpretation at first glance.

      • The patent was a body-mounted devices that sensed sudden motion from falling. Claiming the Wii motion sensors infringed on this feels like an overly broad interpretation at first glance.

        While I do agree with your interpretation here, I seriously doubt the result would have been the same in our corrupt system if the tables were turned and it was the mega-corp Nintendo claiming patent infringement.

        • Your doubt is contradicted by a lot of smaller companies winning patent cases against Apple, Microsoft and others.
          • Do you have examples you can point to? I would be interested in knowing if my outrage at the abuse of patents is justified or just the result of sensationalist, biased reporting.
            • I just googled "microsoft lose patent case", and the top case is https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]

              "Microsoft Corp suffered a defeat on Thursday when the Supreme Court upheld a record $290 million jury verdict against the software giant for infringing a small Canadian company’s patent."

          • Your doubt is contradicted by a lot of smaller companies winning patent cases against Apple, Microsoft and others.

            Mega-corp blatantly and knowingly violates patent of smaller company, and earns $3 billion selling that product.

            Smaller company files infringement suit and is awarded $300 million.

            Tell me again who's the actual "winner" here?

            The US banking industry has proven this countless times. When breaking the law is worth it every fucking time, don't expect Greed to behave any differently than it has for the last century.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

              Generally only a small portion of that 3 billion made off of selling a product (say an iPhone - or Windows) involves the patent in question. So in most cases a $300 million payout is a great deal.

              Worse is the case when Apple attempts to argue that you can't build any smartphones if they happen to include a simulated 'bounce' effect at the end of a scrolling operation. Or Microsoft holds you hostage for including your own FAT32 implementation so that you can read SD cards formatted by a company that alread

        • While I do agree with your interpretation here, I seriously doubt the result would have been the same in our corrupt system if the tables were turned and it was the mega-corp Nintendo claiming patent infringement.

          Don't be a conspiracy nutjob. Small companies get their way all the time in these cases. Hell there's a whole business model based around extorting money from big companies. The difference is you don't hear about them because they are quick to settle out of court when the claims are legitimate.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sycodon ( 149926 )

        So they may have a claim against Apple, or would have, since the Apple Watch has a fall sensor likely using the same principle.

        If anything, they decision should have been does not apply instead of invalidating the patent.
        But as Geekmux says, if Nintindo were the one's with the patents, the outcome would have been different, no doubt.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          You are assuming that the patents are valid. Perhaps since the original decision Nintendo have uncovered new prior art to invalidate the patent. Fall sensors are not new technology.

    • IF you have ever been involved in actually getting a patent (which I have several times) then this is one of the questions. For a company that could get a patent what is the point of having it. One thing is to try and stop others from stealing your technology once the product is in the market (this is kind of what patents were intended for.) However there are two other reasons for getting patents from the point of view of the business both are marketing related. The first is marketing to investors, you tell
  • The original intent of patents was a trade, a limited monopoly in return for the inventor sharing everything about their invention so that it wouldn't be lost and others could build on it. Inventors are always going to invent. Companies will always try and build a better product. We will innovate without patents. Patents now are mostly unreadable. I can't even make any sense of the ones my name is on. A patent should show something new, something that everyone in the field would want to read about. Mo
    • From what I read, big trouble started when the Patent Office was required to be monetarily self sufficient. They have to cover their costs with application fees etc. So, they make more money by being more liberal with approvals thus encouraging more applications. With limited funds for staff and training, it's not surprising that the whole process has become a mess.

  • I can't tell you how many times my Wii helped save lives by letting me know when people fell and when babies were about to suffer infant death syndrome.

    This reminds me of some other case a year or so after the Wii came out where they wanted to sue Nintendo for patent infringement.... And it was some kind of laser pointer that you could use to control Power-Point-like presentations. Nintendo greatly damaged their business meeting tools by releasing bowling and tennis.

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