Nintendo ordered to pay $21 million for patent infringement
A representative for Nintendo stated that no infringement was found in any of the Wii's motion-sensing technology and it expects that on appeal the award to Anascape will be reduced "significantly." Remember kids, if you want to stick it to some big corporation in the future and cash in, just make patents for everything imaginable.
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(Page 1) Reader Comments
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In other words, Nintendo might end up not even paying all that much in the end, and causing the other company even more legal fees.
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Well, yeah Nintendo would pay less if it won an appeal or got the other side to settle with them rather than pay to go through appeals. (It is costly.) Yet, you are likely wrong about the attorney fees. Many plaintiff cases where there is big money on the line are done on contingency - so there are no legal fees. It would be costs (filing fee, postage, etc) and a percentage to the attorney if they win. I can’t speak on how that firm operates on this kind of case, but that generally how plaintiff work is done, otherwise people wouldn’t come to sue as they wouldn’t be able to pay in advance for all the hours that go into a suit.
few lawyer armies will charge 21 million dollars, even in a multiyear lawsuit. this isnt smoking litigation, its patent infringement.
Oh, following links from AP, I see that it was the analog buttons patent. So... don't the Dual Shock 2 and I assume the Sixaxis and Dual Shock 3 have analog buttons? I guess they were different enough to not infringe on this patent?
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The whole patent system is irretrievably broken.
Surely it takes less than five or six years to figure out that a product infringes on a patent...
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it took 5-6 years to allow nintendo to accumulate a nice amount of dough before calling them out.
No one said Nintendo was poor or hurting back then. There's not even that implication joeyg's comment. What he said was that Nintendo made a shit-ton of money in the past few years; that's an undeniable fact. Just look at their stock history:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=NTDOY.PK&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
It went from 8pts/share in 2003 all the way up to 69.7pts/share today.
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http://www.bromsun.com/practices/patent-prosecution/patent-prosecution-inter-partes-reexamination.html
http://www.lw.com/Attorneys.aspx?page=AttorneyBio&attno=71123
But I'm no internet detective. Maybe someone else with more time on their hands will have better luck.
You can basically patent everything, even if you don't a physical prototype or even worse, even if you don't have intentions in build the thing.
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Input device which utilizes "buttons"
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sry broseph
Pay up.
I duno what I just said, but I think you all owe me $$$.
Where's my money, bitches?
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LOL, best line ever. Anyways I agree.
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http://www.innovationalliance.net/patent-fundamentals/patent-based-business-model
There's a nice chart there explaining the whole process. The thing that gets me about it is that normally a patent encourages industry because when you have a great idea you can implement it without worrying that someone else will get to there first. Not having patents would be like if a farmer worked a crop all year and than anyone could just walk in and take whatever he wanted.
The problem with a business that makes all of it's income from patent licensing is that money is invested in research that's already going to be invested in research somewhere else. It benefits no one except the shareholders and weighs down real R & D companies that implement new ideas they came up with on their own and still end up having to pay licensing fees on them.
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Skate boards that hover
Cars that hover
Anything that hovers
Patents are great for a company protecting its creation.. but if someone patents something and does nothing with it, they should LOOSE that patent..
Except my hover patents.. lets leave those alone
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It really upsets you guys when someone else thinks of something before any of your favorite companies. So what? Nintendo might owe someone money. If success is reached using ideas others thought of, then maybe money is owed. Let the qualified and informed settle this, not a string of internet comments where people type 'loose' interchangeably with 'lose.'
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If it was Sony in the hot seat here, would you still feel the same way?
None of those issues you raise have any effect on someones rights when it comes to their own IP.
I was just working on a novel to say what you just said. Thanks for saving me the trouble ;)
tee hee @ ill trooper: good point.