Nintendo Loses Patent Infringement Case Over Wii Controllers

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Andrew Rapacke
Andrew Rapacke is a registered patent attorney and serves as Managing Partner at The Rapacke Law Group, a full service intellectual property law firm.

A four-year court battle ended last week with a jury finding that Nintendo’s Wii remote controllers infringed iLife’s patented motion sensing technology.

iLife’s patent was initially intended to monitor babies to prevent SIDS and monitor the elderly for sudden falls and injuries. The jury awarded a mere $10 million to iLife, significantly less than the $144 million, or $4 for each of the 36 million units sold prior to the suit, that it demanded.

Nintendo, which recently lost a patent infringement suit involving its 3DS portable gaming device and is in the early stages of a suit over its Switch console’s controllers, has a strong interest in appealing the decision given the success of its motion based games.

Nintendo has since stated that it believes the patent is invalid and was written improperly, and it looks forward to obtaining a favorable outcome with the appellate court.

Source: Rolling Stone

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