Former Midway employee suing Nintendo over Wiimote technology

God - as great as this country can be, it also sucks hard sometimes. Nintendo scores a huge success after being made fun of by everyone in the industry, and now the same people that were probably doing the name-calling are rushing in line to sue Nintendo for violating some nonsensical patent. Why wait until now to sue? Why didn't all these people sue the week the Wiimote was announced? I'll tell you: they wanted to wait and see if it caught on, so that they could jump out of the gutters and attack when that happened. If the Wii flopped ala Dreamcast, I guarantee you we wouldn't be seeing these ridiculous suits.

I can see where you nintendo fanboys are coming from, but I think this guys case has merit. He really did patent a controller that could easily pass for a wii remote prototype.
I know that nowadays there is no shortage of people with vaugely worded patents trying to cash in on others success, but can any of you honestly say that if you were the holder of this patent you wouldnt be asking Nintendo for you share?

Looks like he might be better off suing McDonalds.

Note to potential law-suitors:

Nintendo cannot be sued into the ground, they have much more money than, say, Lik-sang

Plus, Nintendo kicks infringement suit ass, if anyone recalls Universal v. Nintendo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_City_Studios%2C_Inc._v._Nintendo_Co.%2C_Ltd.

This is the reason we have patent laws. When you have an idea, you PATENT it, and that way if something is in any shape or form similar in nature, you look up the patent.

When Nintendo was set to release the Wii, they have lawyers that look into this and make sure that their patent is secure and safe, and does not break any laws by using someone else's patents.

Its simple....look up a patent number from any product and match it to its owner, you can google it to get that info.

Its clear this guy is out to get some cash, just to buy a pair of pants. Poor Midway, how did you let this gem go, lol.

Someone should sue Nintendo for releasing the same console two generations in a row.

It's just too bad he didn't have any funding for it. Because it pretty much is the Wii controllers. Just simplified.

I'm suing VidGuy for copying my avatar.

Seriously, this looks like it has more merit than the Copper "Innovations" lawsuit. However, the Power Glove was around since 1989, well before the Wiimote or any of the controllers that it supposedly copied.

There's so much more than just the dude's idea. Ideas are copied all the time. It's the implementation of the idea that warrants any kind of patent dispute - if the patents illustrate that his stuff and Nintendo's stuff are using the same algorithm, or very similar algorithms for the motion sensing with the same sensors and what not, then he might have a case.

There's so much motion based tech out there, and you better believe that companies spend a lot of time/money researching solutions that will not infringe on patents.

This system is dissimiler to the Wii remote in one very important way: his controller looks like it actually works! Ever try and use the Wii-mote for Wii boxing? Maybe it's because his remote uses accelerometers and the wii-mote uses suck-ometers...

this guy seems like one of those retarded dudes that you know from work or school that irks you with every word or thought they tell you....i love the way he tells you his email address...the whole presentation makes me want to vomit...especially the shorts..and that beard..

joystiq, if this is a patent infringement thing, then show us a link to his patent or patent application on uspto.gov. otherwise, dont call it patent infringement.

It's like these people are just coming out of the wood-work aren't they?

anyone wonder why no one contacted him after making such a slick video prezo?

who makes a video like that unless they are in jail - was he at the time?

Wow he seriously needs a Bowflex machine and take a weed whacker to those eyebrows.

Wow! That controls better than Wii Sports Boxing. That is really interesting that he was doing this back in 1999.

damn patent trolls. just looking to make a quick dollar off of someone else's success. if they had the technology ready in 1999 but decided to scrap it and Nintendo makes something similar in 2006, i feel like they gave up on it. its like somebody gives up on an old car, someone else takes it and fixes it up, then the original owner wants it back because it looks good now. i feel like if they didnt want to put in the work to reap the benefits before then it's tough titties.

unfortunately, the patent system doesnt work like that. it's ashame too because it's only going to get worse for Nintendo.

and another thing, if all these companies are suing Nintendo for the same thing (the Wiimote), then why didnt they sue each other before hand, and why are there so many similar patents anyway. i thought that was the point of a patent. to protect an idea. if they are giving out multiple patents for the same stuff then what's the point of the patent?

It becomes obvious that many of you won't give credit if an idea somehow goes at odds with your favorite company (insert "Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft/Apple" here), and really has nothing to do with respect for ideas or innovation.

Why do I have to sit through hundreds of posts over the last year or so talking about the Sixaxis being a rip-off of the Wii Remote and how Sony sucks, but yet when someone in the industry, showing a working prototype functioning on a BOXING game in a manner exactly like the Wii Sports boxing and doing it nearly a decade earlier in a video that Nintendo likely saw, I have to read about how THIS guy sucks, or how he's a patent troll grubbing for money?

Get it together people. Invention and ingenuity need protection because they can generate lots of MONEY (just look to the, um, I don't know, Wii? as the prime example in this case), and if it can be shown that Nintendo did indeed take influence and ideas from this, they're in a great position to give the guy a proper settlement if need be, and if that's what he deserves, more power to him.

How many people have bought a Wii simply based on a night of Wii Sports at a friend's house? For many, it's a Wii Sports machine, and that enthusiasm is based upon the physical, intuitive control shown here seven years earlier, which Nintendo likely saw. Clearly he thought of and implemented this application of accelerometers (which is the important thing here, not simply the use of accelerometers) years before the Wii. Nintendo is making a lot of money off of this style of control, and if it's based on some of this guy's innovation, they easily can and should "break him of a lil' sumfin."

But all of that means nothing to some of you guys, right? You have your Wii Sports and you'll be damned if someone other than Mario and Peach might have helped think of it.

Kindly recognize when you are simply hating, or actually making a valid point about ideas and the origin of them.

Quit missing the point: he wasn't oriented in the same direction as his character.

Boo to immersiveness?

"Got him down pretty quick" (smug look).

Yeah, because you're playing 2 player on your own!!!

*sight* of the dreamcast, not site.

@ vidguy It really comes down to how the patent is written that really tells you if you infringe or not. Patents have to be both a)General and b)specific to protect a) Anything similar, and b) anything just like it.

Can you sue the US government for giving you a patent, that later gets sued for infringing on another patent? "Why did you give me this patent, when there are 3000 other patents that are the same?"

I believe the news reported that he's not suing...