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Tiny game controller company wrests $21 M from giant Nintendo

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

May 15, 2008, 6:21 PM

In 2006, Texas game controller company Anascape filed patent infringement suits against both Nintendo and Microsoft. On Wednesday, Nintendo was ordered to pay $21 million to the company.

The company's complaint was that both Microsoft and Nintendo infringed upon some twelve patents for various game controller designs.

One such patent, filed in 2000, describes a "controller or converter structured for allowing hand inputs to be converted or translated into electrical outputs, the controller structured with a plate or platform movable relative to a base or housing about two mutually perpendicular axes generally parallel to the platform to effect a plurality of sensors for defining output signal(s) based on movement of the platform."

Another from 2001 describes a device "to aid in controlling three-dimensional objects and navigating a three-dimensional viewpoint shown by a display. An active tactile feedback vibrator is mounted as a component of the controller for providing vibration to be felt by a user."

Representatives from Nintendo said that the Wiimote and Nunchuck controller's motion-sensing technology were not found to be in violation of Anascape's patents.

Microsoft previously settled out-of-court with the group, but did not disclose the terms. Though Anascape is the holder of these patents, it appears to be capable of doing little else with them, unless it considers $21 million as seed money for a future venture.

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By poeg

posted May 18, 2008 - 8:26 PM

In `93 it was nearly as bad as the domain name grab. Everyone and his dog with a few hundred to spare was throwing in whatever they could in hope of landing the big one and winning that lottery. The problem stems from having already accepted such "fantasy" patents for so long there's no going back. Grandfathering isn't just an old guy who sends you birthday money and takes you fishing.

Score: 0

By darkfire79

edited May 17, 2008 - 4:38 PM

lame... ( the suit, not the previous comment )..

Score: 0

By overlandpark4me

posted May 17, 2008 - 1:47 PM

I patented transporter technology for humans, so my payday is coming soon.......for my g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g grandkids. I'm so excited.

Score: 0

By Danno

posted May 16, 2008 - 1:19 PM

This severly limits the posibilities of future tech when you can patent something just because you have the idea. I agree with many of the comments here if you put in for a patent you should have a working model within a period of 5 to 10 years not wait for someone to make a prototype wait for it to be sold and a grand scale and then say "ah ha!" i have a patent for this pay up now !

Score: 0

By vincentw56

posted May 16, 2008 - 10:40 AM

Just another reason why the patent system is broken. Why is it you can patent something without having a working model. You can make something up and patent it and then hope someone else makes it so you can sue them. I hope something gets fixed because this is not the 1800s anymore.

Score: 0

By Niro

posted May 16, 2008 - 10:59 AM

The reason it works that way is if you come up with an idea, in order to prevent a bigger company from taking your idea and making the product first, you patent it to protect yourself.

However, the problem is people take advantage and just patent ideas and wait for someone else to build the product. They should enforce some time limit, where if you patent an idea and you don't show any working prototypes or some sort of progress in making a product out of it, that the patent will get thrown out.

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted May 16, 2008 - 6:37 PM

Agreed. These companies are ridiculous.

Score: 0

By Austin814

posted May 16, 2008 - 9:10 AM

I thought it was the patent office that was supposed to cross check the patents? If Microsoft and Nintendo both pantented their controllers too isnt it the patent office responcibility to not allow something to be re-patented? I think the company filing the lawsuit should have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the defendant used their patented design, and didnt just happen to think of the same thing because it was an obvious direction to move in.

I'm off to patent "a form of radio active power for use in homes" That sounds generic enough...

Score: 0

By vern222

edited May 17, 2008 - 7:34 PM

Sorry Austin, patents are way more complicated than that. First of all, its unlikely you can just "patent a controller". You can only patent specific aspects of controllers.

Don't let the brief quotes of the patent text in the article fool you into thinking thats all that was included in the document. Patents are usually (today) many pages long with detailed text and specific diagrams.

Score: 0

By psycros

posted May 16, 2008 - 7:32 AM

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the military using Wii-like controllers fifteen years ago in their simulators? If so, shouldn't Raytheon or whoever produced them be suing this little troll outfit?

Score: 0

By bolaris

edited May 16, 2008 - 2:56 AM

Its like a person drawing a circle on paper and filing lawsuit on the poor guy that spent all day chopping the tree down to make a wheel.

Score: 0

By cozappz

posted May 16, 2008 - 3:33 AM

The patent should be awarded only if you built the wheel, not if you dreamed of it!
Not to mention it could be more severe: show the wheel is used into something before getting the patent! I can say I invented walking, get a patent and then sue everyone!

Score: 0

By netjustin

posted May 16, 2008 - 3:47 PM

Maybe I missed something; did the article state whether Anascape did or didn't develop the ideas they patented?

Score: 0

By foxfyre

posted May 15, 2008 - 7:36 PM

Don't mess with Texas...

Score: 0

By daq

posted May 15, 2008 - 6:43 PM

Great news for Anascape -- public exposure + $21M = Score!!!

We really need to redesign the whole patent system. The lawsuits are getting out of hand. Hostly, just throw out all these ambiguous patents. Today their only application are these worthless lawsuits.

Score: 0

By vern222

posted May 17, 2008 - 7:44 PM

daq: you wouldn't feel that way if you had an invention.

And, by the way, a judge decided that the Anascape patents were not ambiguous.

Patent law is a very complicated issue. And while I agree that sometimes these things seem silly, many times they are not.

Big companies like MS and Nintendo actually do much more harm (my opinion) by sqashing little companies with patents they sit on and never develope. The big guys use patents as negotiation points with other big companies as well.

Building a working prototype of many products is VERY expensive due to customized equipment and materials costs. In certain cases I have seen it cost millions just to get a prototype.

So do you expect some small inventor with a good idea to find the money to make an expensive prototype? No, they have to go find the $$ to do it. And how can you safely get money if you don't have a patent to protect your rights.

Guys, just because you love some some product that Nintendo makes doesn't mean they don't have to pay when they tred on someone else's invention.

Score: 0

By Mystiqq

posted May 18, 2008 - 7:12 AM

Which is why patents should have time limit. I think this is already the case with drug (pharmaceutical) development, at least in the EU(?). I think they have about 10 years "exclusive" right to produce and sell their patented drug and after that anyone can use the design to produce and sell similar drug. Which seems to be more than fair considering the amount of time and money drug development usually takes.

I might be wrong though...

Score: 0

By GD825

edited May 15, 2008 - 9:42 PM

if they didnt design anything with that patent then screw them.. why should they get credit for making up some paperwork and doing nothing with it?

they should be paying nintendo 21 mill just b/c they used their name in an anti-nintendo way...

Score: 0

By vern222

posted May 17, 2008 - 7:52 PM

GD, see my comment above. You aren't looking at all the sides of this thing.

Inventing "on paper" as you say is the most important part of any product development process.

In fact, thats how it works at a big company. Some guy (or a team) creates a specification for the invention, including text and diagram details.

The problem is, the lone inventor doesn't have all the resources of a big company and needs a way to protect an invention.

Unless you want just the big fat cats controlling all the new products we get, I'd suggest you consider the other side of this.

As a result, sometimes a lawsuit will happen that might look silly. Oh, well, little price to pay. Big companys can afford to deal with it.

Plus, seems like a judge thinks Anascape did have a valid patent.

Score: 0

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