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Nintendo Faces Patent Suit Over the Wii

Posted by Soulskill on from the to-the-rocket-docket dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A company named Thinkoptics has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Nintendo over the motion controller used with the Wii. Apparently they make a similar product named the Wavit Remote, and they've been granted patents describing its operation. 'And they've chosen the setting most likely to yield a win: the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas. Now, that's not to say that Wavit-maker Thinkoptics will get a win, but this particular court circuit tends to favor the patent holder over all else. The patent in question, U.S. Patent Number 7,796,116, is titled "Electronic equipment for handheld vision based absolute pointing system." Thinkoptics' primary argument in the case is that Nintendo had previous knowledge that the Wii would infringe based on the Trademark Office's rejection of certain claims in Nintendo-filed patents.'"

11 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Filed in July 2005 by somersault · · Score: 2

    The Wii came out in November 2006, their patent was filed in July 2005. The design of their system isn't as elegant as the Wii's (then again, it's probably more accurate), but at least they're not trolling..

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    which is totally what she said
    1. Re:Filed in July 2005 by pecosdave · · Score: 2

      Why did they wait so long instead of filing the day the Wii was introduced? Now it's within a year or so of being superseded by the Wii U. Seems to me if they really wanted to protect their patent they would have done it the day the thing was released, by waiting until near the end of this particular product cycle they're vampiring off of success.

      Still trolling.

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      The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
    2. Re:Filed in July 2005 by Aladrin · · Score: 5, Informative

      They filed in July 2005. It was apparently granted in Sep, 2010. So they only waited a year, not 5 years. And they may have waited the year because they were getting their ducks in a row, negotiating with Nintendo, or other reasons.

      I'm not saying they aren't trolling... I'm saying they may have their reasons. We don't know.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    3. Re:Filed in July 2005 by somersault · · Score: 2

      According to Wikipedia, they kept the motion controllers a secret until the later 2005 Tokyo Game Show though.

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      which is totally what she said
    4. Re:Filed in July 2005 by kj_kabaje · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How do you know they did not try to address this with Nintendo?  Regardless of how you feel about patents, do you think Nintendo has a reason to be nice to someone who quite possibly patented something but is not an MNC?  There's a pretty large difference in power/capital of the companies involved I'd wager.

    5. Re:Filed in July 2005 by reg106 · · Score: 2
      The patent application didn't publish until Jul 13, 2006, four months before the release of the Wii to the public on Nov. 19, 2006. Nintendo would not have known about the patent application until after the publish date. (The original filing date is for the provisional patent, which is secret). The design of the Wii controller would have been locked down long before that, because developers need to have games ready at launch. According to Wikipedia, Nintendo settled on the controller design in 2005, though the design was not announced to the public. This timeline makes it seem possible that ThinkOptic submitted their provisional patent application when they heard rumors that Nintendo would use similar technology. (There was certainly a lot of speculation in 2005 about the novel controller that Nintendo was going to release.)

      Note that this is a United States patent case. Under US patent law (unlike international patent law), patent rights are assigned by first to invent, not first to file. This means the case depends on how long Nintendo and ThinkOptic were working on the devices before filing. This makes for really messy patent fights. I'm really surprised that Nintendo wouldn't have previous patents related to this technology. Then again, they probably do, but those patents aren't mentioned in the article, which is written from the ThinkOptic perspective without a response from Nintendo.

    6. Re:Filed in July 2005 by boarder · · Score: 2

      This just in: some companies have large capital reserves and would rather duel lawyer v lawyer in court than cede negotiations to a much smaller company.

      You have no idea what went on during those 5 years. Maybe they had been doing everything they possibly could to get Nintendo to license the patents. Maybe they were trying to get Nintendo to contract them to develop new hardware and technologies for the next gen system in exchange for free licensing of the patents.

      You have absolutely zero knowledge, yet you completely dismiss and insult them based on your prejudices. Congrats on being what's wrong with the world today.

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      IANAL, but I play one on /.
  2. Re:Why? by Dachannien · · Score: 2

    You can find out for yourself by viewing the file wrapper at the USPTO's website, but to summarize:

    It took just over 3 years before the first office action in the case was sent to the applicant. Unfortunately, this delay is currently pretty close to average for applications in this technology area. After that, the applicant had to amend the claims four times to get the application into condition for allowance, which resulted in the additional two years of delay.

    Note, however, that the application was published as normal at 18 months after the effective filing date (or 6 months after the actual filing date in this case, because they claimed benefit to a provisional application that they filed).

  3. Overlapping development by rfolkker · · Score: 5, Informative

    This case would be a sad state of patent law if this company does win.
    While Nintendo may have been made aware of the patent when they applied for the trademark, they had already completed their development of the device before this had happened. This is not a unique situation, just rare. It would appear that the company that wrote the patent did it at the same time (or VERY close) to the announcement of the WiiMote. Which was announced 2 months after the patent was filed At the Tokyo Game Show(See: http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/2005/english/). So, considering the fact that the controller was announced, it would be a fair assumption that they did not start development on the controller within the 60 day window between a filing of a US patent, and announcing their product. Obviously Nintendo will have to prove that was infact the case, but having worked on a patent suit in the past, that part is the easy thing to prove. This whole Trademark red-herring will probably be more of an annoyance then anything.

    Also keep in mind, while the patent was filed in 2005, it wasn't published until 2006. There is no way that Nintendo could have known about this product via it's patent until they had completed their development, and started contracts for mass production for their November 2006 release. Considering the 3-5 year R&D cycle on these systems, the timeline with the patent don't line up for an infringement. However, it should give Nintendo an exception to the patent, while still allowing the company to hold it's patent (which may actually be the point of the suit, to prevent Nintendo from being identified as prior art).

    On a side note, Nintendo filed their patent in Japan one month before this other company did in the US.
    see: http://www19.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/PA1/cgi-bin/PA1DETAIL
    Publication name: 2006-331109
    Filing date: 26.05.2005
    Application Number: 2005-154233

  4. Re:As someone who lives in more or less Eastern Te by MagikSlinger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This American Life & Planet Money had a good show about this. It is because the East Texas court has a relatively free docket; the other courts are clogged with War on Drugs cases. There are also a lot of home offices for patent troll companies near that court. TAL tried to visit these offices and discovered almost all of them are empty and never used.

    --
    The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
  5. Re:PRIOR ART! by Tharsman · · Score: 2

    As far as this particular case goes, the patent was applied for in 2005 but was not granted until about a year ago. Until the patent is granted, you cant take any legal action against anyone.

    It is very likely as soon as they got the patent they approached Nintendo for negotiations, after all Nintendo already patents the gyroscopic features from another company so they are not opposed to pay for patent licensing when the law says so. Its likely negotiations during the year fell through due to agreements in fees and they decided now to approach the court.

    I hate patents, big time. But got to say, as far as patent lawsuits go, this one seems as legit as they can ever be. I'm sure the guys were biting their fingernails in anger during that time, worrying about Nintendo accumulating enough wealth to make it impossible to challenge them in court without huge risks of loosing and wasting millions. After all, he who has the deepest pockets tends to win patent lawsuits.