Certain Nintendo controllers face retail ban

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jul 22nd 2008 3:30PM

Nintendo could see its GameCube, Wavebird and Wii Classic Controller banned from retail shelves. Bloomberg reports that Nintendo has lost its attempt to overturn a $21 million patent-infringement verdict brought against the company by ~~patent trolls~~ patent holders Anascape Ltd. of Tyler, Texas. The house of Mario has a stay on the ban by putting the judgment amount in escrow until its case goes to the US Court of Appeals in the Federal Circuit.

The Texas jury found the Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers did not violate Anascape's patent; previously, Sony paid off Anascape back in 2004 and Microsoft settled on May 1, just before the Nintendo trial began. Anascape argued for the ban because it wants to enter the market and Nintendo has "clogged the channel." Yeah, we're very much looking forward to seeing if the third-party Anascape controller ever gets released.

Source

Tags: anascape, GameCube, lawsuit, nintendo, patent, texas, Wii

Reader Comments (94)

Thats freakin stupid.

Amen to that!

Yes, it IS stupid - stupid of Nintendo not to settle like MS and Sony did.

yup, fucking thing sucks. Might have to pick up a few gc controllers in a bit

Let us go set their building of fire.

I doubt anything will happen.. but i'm gonna buy that extra Gamecube and Classic controller ive needed for my home quickly, just in case.

They'll never enter the market. They're nothing but a bunch of patent sitters who steal money from people who make products that are "similar" to the ones that they vaguely patented.

Heh, that's a good way of putting it.

agreed.

they're just game controllers.
This is almost as lame as Jack Thompson and all his hi jinks!

Did my old GameCube controllers just sky-rocket in price?

Nintendonald's prolly doesnt care anyway, those controllers arent casual enough...

SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH NINTENDONALDS
IT IS ANNOYING AS HELL AND ISN'T EVEN CLEVER
ITS LIKE SOMEONE SAYING MICROSOFTSERVE OR SONYCARLSJUNIOR

CAPSCAPSCAPSCAPS

It's also freaking true, so there.

"Nintendonald's"?

You're seriously the worst type of fanboy. You see any article even remotely related to Nintendo and quickly wrack your brain to formulate a "witty" quip based on a 30 second scan of it. Just stop, please.

I kinda like "Sonycarl'sjr."

oh man, MICROSOFTSERVE !!!

"Nintendonalds" is a pretty good one! And look how well it works, riling up the fans!

I would suspect they have a pretty solid case if both Sony and MS settled out of court. Both companies haven't been wimpy when it comes to protracted legal battles.

I'm curious as to why Nintendo doesn't just settle with all the gobs of cash they are making on the Wii.

They might as well go ahead and buy the company while they're at it.

Or maybe they were just too busy to fight a legal battle AGAIN ..... Wasn't there something about Rumble too .

Well... without knowing the details (and with msoft and sony settling, theres probably some base to the claims tho), I'm gonna side with Anascape on this one. They have every right to defend their "intellectual property" as I'm sure Nintendo would if one of its patents were misused.

You honestly believe they are going to make ANYTHING? The patent system needs reform. Maybe make it so if you don't have a product out using your patents in x years, the patent in void.

I'm not defending the patent system. It's as flawed as the copyright laws in this country. We need more bull shit like this to bring attention to a decaying old system.

All I'm saying is let the corporations pee over each other until somethings done to fix the system.

B-b-b-b-b-but TEH WIIMOTE IS ALL YOU WILL EVAR NEED
STICK-WAGGLING FTW

Nintendo betrayed me!!. ahhhh.. opps wrong post.

dont worry buddy i heard at the Tokyo Games Show they'll finally reveal Nintendonkeys, it will pwn Sony's Afrika due to the waggle revolutionary innovation with MotionPlusExtra attachment!

I already know that Curmeo 2.0, Im HARDCORE!

Nintendonkies!!!
Hurrah for Wii-mote donkey punching

Jesus Christ Curmeo, get off the internets!

Saria stop fucking stalking every post of mine.

Now if only Curmeo was funny...

speaking of donkey puncking. And Nintendo.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227

Still makes me laugh out loud.

curmeo, it's hardly stalking when you post so many raving comments that they're unavoidable.

Oh biased ones,

why do you NOT protest premier(insert name here) posts? They are NEVER funny, at least Curmeo is funny sometimes.

Maybe the game will be called Wiisafari, and you can use the Wiimotion plus to dig thru animal dung just and figuring out what they ate that day. You could also wave your hand back and forth showing how much the dung stinks.

Wii = Revolution*

*revolution of getting customers to buy all sorts of gadgets JUST to play mini-games that require little to No (Wiimusic) skill.

just like a biologist and figure out what they ate that day.

I love how Joystiq has an edit feature just like N4G.

KillJebus, I'm not gonna be condescending towards you because unlike Curmeo you make smart posts often. Here's the thing, though - Curmeo isn't funny. He really isn't. He may have been about eight months ago when he started spewing the Nintendonalds joke left and right, but it's old now. It's stale. All he's doing is making himself look dumb and cluttering comment chains with stupidity.

And I do protest Premier posts, when I see 'em. I don't venture into the PS3/360 posts often because the Wii posts are where the arguments are at. :]

I'mma pretend you didn't type that last paragraph.

@fatass,

I said sometimes. Yes I agree that Curmeo uses Nintendonals as much as Dubya does with "stay the course" but he kayracks me up from time to time.

I cannot believe the about-face you have done with Nintendo. I really do wish Nintendo would have put out a REAL now-gen machine instead of the Wiicube. But it is now clear to everyone that they are in it to make as much money as possible b4 the "lemmings" catch on to the BS.

It's really sad what the Plumber has become, oh well...at least I have memories of a time when Nintendo WAS videogames.

What is your PSN? (if you have one)

Bashing Sony is so 2007, it looks as if 2008 is the year of bash Nintendo.

I would be lying if I said I did NOT have a smirk on my face after all of the bashing I took when EVERYONE was convinced the the WSM was the future of gaming and the PS3 was DOA.

My question is...why was I the only one to see thru the Plumbers crack and realize how awful the smell really is? What took you ladies so long?

KillJebus, I AM gonna be condescending towards you... partly because you dont seem particularly bright and partly because its soooo very easy (and fun)..

You really seem to believe your opinion is fact. Look at your comments, they pretty much boil down to a lot of name calling and hyperbole. Is it a running joke on your part or are you really just that retarded?

@KillJebus

The reason you were the only one to 'smell through the crack' or whatever is because the rest of us were still having fun with the Plumber's best 3D outing yet.

Nintendo did a good job backing the Wii with software for the first two years. The reason I'm not into the Wii anymore is simply because they're not doing a good job anymore. I'm hearing about the untitled Pikmin/Mario/Zelda projects, but instead of letting gamers know about them, Nintendo put the spotlight on a bunch of casual shit. Before, when Nintendo was coming out with a few AA/AAA titles a year, it was easy to see that Nintendo still had the gamer in mind, but that's changed, and so has my interest in the Wii as a result.

Oh, and I disagree with your idea that it takes power to make a truly great game system. I've had more fun with my Nintendo DS than any other system this generation. In fact, I still disagree with a lot of what you guys say, but at least now I can truly understand where you're coming at, because I'm now a (console) gamer abandoned by Nintendo as well.

Curmeo: Fuck off. Nintendo has more IPs than just Mario. Whereas Microsoft has HALO and Microsoft paint. And Nintendonalds? What. The. FUCK? Whats next? RedRing Robins? Sonyic? Nintin & Out burger?

Killjebus: I don't know if you've realized this yet, but here on Joystiq, we discuss games, not Political opinions. Also, if doubling the CPU power of the last console doesn't make you "new-gen", then the 360 better GTFO. Power /=/ Fun, I can still dig out my PS1 and have fun playing the last good NFS (High Stakes), even though the graphics look worse than my DS. Okami isn't GTA IV, but so far I've had more fun playing that than GTA.

Ouch.

Fortunately, my friends who own a Wii already own either a GameCube (and subsequently a GameCube controller), WaveBird controller, or a Wii Classic Controller.

*sells a WaveBird for a small fortune* ;D

Nintendo lost its case, and Microsoft and Sony chose to settle, which suggests that Anascape had a good case.

Or it suggests that they had good lawyers, or the jury was fucking stupid.

"or the jury was fucking stupid"

The case was in Texas...

"The case was in Texas..."

HEY NOW! I RESEMBLE THAT STATEMENT!

I still don't understand how Nintendo lost when all of these controllers are derived from the Super Nintendo and the N64 was the first one to have analog sticks.

Analog sticks were the default of PC games in the early days of home computers. Nasty, non-self-centering affairs, too.

I see the confusion in my words. I meant Nintendo was the first among the parties involved to the best of my knowledge. Sorry about the confusion.

I'd love to see what exactly the grounds of this case are. Frankly, controllers haven't really changed much since the N64/psone. So either Anascape has done a suck job of defending its patents or they're just patent trolls looking to make a quick buck in the wonderful world of copyright law (kinda ironic that all 3 of these companies love using these same laws to beat up on homebrew and emulation).

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Certain Nintendo controllers face retail ban

Reader Comments (94)

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