Nintendo will fight $21M appeal denial

[Shrygue]

via Computer and Video Games


Nintendo will fight a court's decision to deny the game maker's appeal of a $21 million patent infringement verdict involving game controllers.

After the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Lufkin Division told Nintendo that it must pay millions of dollars to Texas-based Anascape for patent infringement, the famous game company appealed the decision, asking for a reduced verdict.

But on Thursday, judge Ron Clark denied Nintendo's appeal, and upheld the jury's May 14 decision.

However, the fight over the patents isn't over yet, Nintendo has told Next-Gen.

"Nintendo does not agree with the ruling of the trial court on the remittitur motion," said Charlie Scibetta, senior director of public relations at Nintendo of America in an e-mail. "Nintendo intends to appeal this case to the Federal circuit court."

The jury said that Anascape's lawyers presented enough evidence showing that Nintendo had infringed on patents in the production of the GameCube controller, the Wavebird, the Wii Classic controller and the Wii Remote.

In a statement issued Friday, Anascape's lawyers praised this week's ruling. "We appreciate the Court's thoughtful consideration in upholding the jury's decision," said Doug Cawley, principal at McKool Smith and lead counsel for Anascape. "Although not a giant corporation like Nintendo, Anascape has every right to protect its technology."

In 2006, Anascape also filed suit against Microsoft and Sony for alleged patent infringements pertaining to game controllers.

[masterchief929]

this is completely retarded. making people follow strict guide lines in producing a product that THEY OWN AND INVENTED is communism.

[rememberthe8bit]

Hah! These guys don't even seem to have a website!
What, did they go back in time and patent the game controller!? :P I love my home country and all of it's court-clogging frivolous lawsuits.

[____anders____]

it seems to me that they just want money.

so, Anascape made every controller for current and last generation game consoles?

riiiiigt, seems a little fishy to me..

[AndrewArsonn]

Such bullsh*t, " Anascape" will lose for sure.

[trugamer]

What they've done is they've registered vague patents that apply to all the last gen controllers, e.g. "Force feedback in a 3d pad" enabling them to sue anyone with a similar product, how legal these patents with no intention to develop even a prototype is a concern, and something Nintendo's lawyers will (and probably have done) probably present to the court, i.e. anascape hasn't lost any revenue from its non-existent product.

And no, it isn't communism- its capitalism at its worst.

[____anders____]

yeah, they've probably registered too general patents like you said, trugamer.

IMO, they're just greedy bastards that want a part of the major game companies money..