Nintendo ordered to pay $21 million

[mat64]

Back in August 2006, Texas-based gaming company Anascape filed suits for patent infringement against both Microsoft and Nintendo.

Almost two years later, an East Texas jury has found in favour of Anascape and ordered Nintendo of America to cough up $21 million, reports Associated Press.

The jury agreed that Nintendo infringed upon one of Anascape's patents in the designs of its Wii Classic, Wavebird, and GameCube controllers.

Nintendo spokesperson Charlie Scibetta said that the company would appeal, and that it was expecting the award to be "significantly reduced." He added that the company was pleased that no infringement had been found for the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers.

According to AP, which sources The Lufkin Daily News, Anascape's suit against Microsoft was settled out of court before the Nintendo trial, although terms of the settlement were not made public.


Abit hefty really, although I suppose it's fair considering how much money Nintendo would have made from this patent infringement over the years. It wasn't long since that Sony was forced to pay a large sum for a simular patent infringement case..

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6190977.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;1

[Rarelime]

Its a small fee, considering how well Nintendo's products sell.

[Niall!]

:S

They copied someone for the gamecubes controller?
Ewwwwww

I'll never look at it the same way.


sarcasm

[Neversoft]

Lol, I doubt Nintendo copied anyone. It was just a coincidence.

Interlink Electronics filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Nintendo over the pointing functionalities of the Wii Remote, claiming "loss of reasonable royalties, reduced sales and/or lost profits as a result of the infringing activities" of Nintendo. Anascape Ltd, a Texas-based firm, also filed a lawsuit against Nintendo for patent infringements.[83] Law firm Green Welling LLP filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo for its "defective wrist straps". A Texas-based company called Lonestar Inventions has also sued Nintendo, claiming that the company copied one of Lonestar's patented capacitor designs and used it in the Wii console.

Everyones after Nintendo. :P

[mangle]

It's peanuts to them anyway. But still, bit iffy.

[GommeInc]

Hmmm, interesting. As people have said, it's nothing to Nintendo. Alternatively, what do these controllers look like that were copied from Microsoft and Nintendo? I can't find any.

[JoeyK.]

Pennies to Nintendo, honestly. I wonder what exactly they said was copied?

[Simmzay]

Looking into it, the reason seems to be a "3D controller with vibration". A little vague if true.