Nintendo Defeats and Assumes Control of 'Patent Troll's' Portfolio After Victory

the simurgh sends this news from Gamespot: "Nintendo has acquired the entire patent portfolio of now-defunct IA Labs following its victory in court, the Japanese gaming giant has announced. Nintendo obtained the patents during a sheriff's sale in Montgomery County, Maryland on Tuesday. IA Labs originally sued Nintendo for patent infringement in 2010, claiming the Mario maker's Wii controller and Wii Fit technology infringed on two separate IA Labs patents. Nintendo successfully defended itself as part of a court battle in 2012, also winning various fees related to the case. IA Labs appealed the ruling, but an appellate court sided with Nintendo in June 2013. At this point, IA Labs was ordered to pay Nintendo additional fees, and when the company failed to do so, a sheriff's sale was commenced."

Comments

not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Nintendo

[raymorris]

IA labs made actual products similar to wii-fit and met with Nintendo to discuss making Wii accessories using their technology at about the time the 3DS was to be released. IA then found out that Nintendo made the accessories themselves, apparently "stealing the ideas" that IA presented to them. So that's not what we'd normally call a patent troll.

It turns out that Nintendo had been developing the products before meeting with IA, and the court ruled that Nintendo didn't infringe the IA patents, so IA lost. It appears to me that IA was a bit too aggressive in defending their patents, but they didn't engage in the pattern of behavior normally associated with a troll.

Re: not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Nint

[Anonymous Coward]

A thoughtful, informative, useful post. Thank you.

Re: not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Nint

[Ignacio]

Except that Nintendo didn't do that. It was the writer of the "article" (which is really just an oversized text blurb) who used that word.

Re: not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Nint

[noh8rz10]

ho snap! It's like when super mario defeated bowser! or like when an incredible wii mario kart team of snowden and assange took down NSA using bitcoin shells. Now mario needs to free tea party land from the evil clutches of the repub-demo mono-party! using linux!

Re:re

[umafuckit]

Don't worry, Nintendo is doomed. They will soon be collapse under the weight of their constant failures

Here's a list of their failures clustered at the top of the "best selling console" list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles

Patentmon

[lxs]

Gotta catch them all!

That's too bad

[fustakrakich]

The entire portfolio should have put into the public domain. That's the price that should be paid in these kinds of things.

Re:That's too bad

[gnasher719]

The entire portfolio should have put into the public domain. That's the price that should be paid in these kinds of things.

To me that sounds entirely unreasonable. So could you explain your reasoning?

Re:That's too bad

[DexterIsADog]

The entire portfolio should have put into the public domain. That's the price that should be paid in these kinds of things.

To me that sounds entirely unreasonable. So could you explain your reasoning?

I was going to just ignore the GP until I saw your post, and thought about it. I guess it goes like this:

A: Hey! You're infringing our patents and here's why!
B: Nuh-uh!
Judge: I concur; nuh-uh. Find in favor of B.
A: Curses!
Judge: A, all of the patents you were defending now belong to the peeples.
The Peeples: Sweet!

My guess is the GP is generally hostile to patents, maybe to all IP. His philosophy might be, "music wants to be free! (to live on my iPod)"

Re:That's too bad

[mysidia]

To me that sounds entirely unreasonable. So could you explain your reasoning?

I agree that the patents going to the public domain is a more appropriate outcome.

The constitutional authorization is

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Note, that SECURING TO CLAIMANTS AGAINST AUHTORS, or Securing to people the Authors owe money to is not part of the authorization.

Not only, does the patent fail to promote progress, but it actually impedes it --- if the inventor who owns the patent (1) Cannot get their royalties, when the company they pitched the invention to decides to steal it and re-create it themselves, and (2) When the inventor/innovator arbitrarily gets bad treatment in the courts --- due to the large company they are fighting against, being able to hire a lavish uber-expensive legal team, and the inventor's comparatively small available resources to litigate their case.

Re:That's too bad

[VortexCortex]

Yes, but nearly all of these arguments are pointless because:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

... is a Brain-Damage scale assumption. First, prove that securing exclusive rights to writings and discoveries can promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Since the old founding farts didn't do any damn experiment to test their belief first, a rational course of action would be to abolish these exclusive rights and find out. We can re-implement any ridiculous legal restrictions after we've ascertained whether we're actually helping or harming the economy of information and ideas. Other arguments are largely pointless since they're rooted in the same unevidenced drivel of that assumption. You'd be hard pressed to find scientists that disagree that It's irresponsible to run the world's economy based on untested hypotheses -- Yet the "scientists" and/or "engineers" betray their very craft as hypocrites who hold patents themselves. What strange hell is this?

Conversely, before anyone gets the retarding assumption that I hold any opinions based on "pointless and unevidenced drivel", I present the Automotive and Fashion industries which sell primarily on design and are very innovative and lucrative despite not having copyrights or design patents. A point of evidence in favor of the null hypothesis against the founders' assumption: Patents and copyright are not responsible for promoting progress of science and useful arts.

In other words: "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." - Albert Einstein

However, I would also point out that I don't agree with the absolutist notion in this quote's "no problem", just that this is applicable to problems in general. The wise typically avoid absolutist notions; There are usually exceptions, that's why we scientists test our beliefs before holding them: Even the wise respected ones can be utterly foolish at times.

Automatic invalidation

[Overzeetop]

If two "practitioners skilled in the art" come up with the same idea independently, it SHOULD automatically invalidate the patent. That is part of the patent language, is it not?

Re:not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Ninte

[Fnord666]

IA labs made actual products similar to wii-fit and met with Nintendo to discuss making Wii accessories using their technology at about the time the 3DS was to be released. IA then found out that Nintendo made the accessories themselves, apparently "stealing the ideas" that IA presented to them. So that's not what we'd normally call a patent troll.

I agree. Based on this article, Interactive Labs held the original patents and made products based on those patents. iA Labs acquired the patents later, then sued Nintendo with them. I think this was actually a defensive measure by Interactive Labs.

On April 2(2010), IA Labs filed suit against Nintendo in the United States District Court of Maryland. The suit claims that Nintendo has willfully infringed upon IA Labs patents with Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, and the Wii Balance Board, as well as the Wii Remote, Wii Nunchuk, Wii MotionPlus, Wii Wheel, and Wii Zapper. The company acquired the aforementioned patents in 2009 from Interaction Labs.

The fitness-technology company claims that the patents have been used in a number of products in the past. As detailed in the filing, Interaction Labs released the Kilowatt Sport and Exer-Station, both of which add a workout element to "any off-the-shelf video game on the PlayStation, Xbox, GameCube, or PC."

Both the patents and the products based on those patents were created by Interaction Labs. Interaction Labs held discussions with Nintendo in 2007 and 2008. iA Labs acquired the patents in 2009 and then sued Nintendo in 2010. iA Labs doesn't seem to have actually produced anything. One interesting thing to note is the following:

The suit also notes that then-Interaction Labs president and current IA Labs chief technology officer Greg Merril contacted Nintendo on a number of occasions in 2007 and 2008, through personal meetings and via e-mail. However, Merril's attempt to enter into a licensing agreement with Nintendo ultimately resulted in the publisher ceasing contact in late 2008.

One possibility is that iA Labs may have been spun off by Interactive Labs solely for the purpose of protecting the rest of Interactive Labs from an outcome like this.

Re:re

[whoever57]

Um, if you sort by date, they are currently 3rd place out of 3 for major consoles.

Um, so you mean that, in the latest generation, selling 4.3 million versus Sony's 4.2 million and Microsoft's 3 million puts Nintendo in third place? Protip: they are only 3rd when you sort by date because the Wii U was released before the other 2 consoles.

Re:re

[Stormy Dragon]

It doesn't matter if they're first, second, or three hundredth. What matter is if they're profitable. Their 7.2 billion yen profit for 2013 says that yes, they are.

Re: not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Nint

[davester666]

More like:

A thoughtful, informative, useful post. Get lost. We don't need your kind around here.

Re: not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Nint

[fahrbot-bot]

You don't find many of these kind of posts anymore. Not a single offtopic mention of NSA, Snowden, Assange, Bitcoin, or how stupid one is if they support any political party. I know, they'll show up soon, but at least I can enjoy the moment before I hit the refresh button.

I've been hatching a theory, very loosely based on Godwin's Law, that any thread here that includes either NSA, Snowden, or Bitcoin ultimately will include the other two. The theory hasn't previously include Assange since we haven't heard much about him lately, but I'll consider incorporating him into it if need be.

In this case, your theory is rather prescient. I read somewhere that IA Labs was developing their WiFi controllers in cahoots with the NSA, providing secret back doors and monitoring capabilities for the NSA - so they could monitor and subtly control our gaming behaviors - and that Snowden leaked this information to Assange. Everyone involved was paid in Bitcoins.

Now that we know, this exploit can obviously be circumvented by wrapping the WiFi controllers in tin foil.

Re:re

[wagnerrp]

Are you saying that Sony has sold as many PS4s in less than two months as Nintendo has sold WiiUs in over a year?

Re:Wrong

[bussdriver]

I knew somebody who worked at Activision/Blizzard for a decade. They can almost click and build for any platform they want. Big companies who target more than 1 platform can cheaply target any other platforms. The marketing department and backroom deals decide what happens; it is rarely technical; as you find out in the real world.

Small developers, that is a different story. Nintendo needs 3rd parties less than ANYBODY in the industry and for their whole history too. Small developers are not a critical portion for the big 3.

1 product is non-infringing doesn't = worthless

[raymorris]

Just because Nintendo's existing product didn't already infringe doesn't mean they are worthless. Perhaps Nintendo redesigned products specifically to avoid infringement. Perhaps they would like to make or license products that would infringe.

Suppose I invent a working time machine. Nintendo hasn't infringed that patent in the past. Does that make the time machine patent worthless?