Firm promises to go to Wario
NINTENDO HAS had the bounce taken from its mushroom after it was forced to pay $10m after losing a patent lawsuit over its motion controllers.
iLife was awarded $10 for violation of the accelerometer tech inside the Wii remotes that captured the hearts and wrists of gamers and non-gamers alike.
The Dallas court ruled in favour of iLife who had been using similar technology in the healthcare market. In a statement read by their lawyer it said
«Since 2013, Munck Wilson Mandala has represented iLife. Today’s verdict is the result of our commitment to excellence and an outstanding team effort.»
Their lawyer is Munck Wilson Mandala, in case you’d not guessed.
«On Aug. 31,2017, a jury in Texas found that certain Wii and Wii U video game systems and software bundles infringed a patent belonging to iLife Technologies Inc. related to detecting if a person has fallen down.
«The jury awarded iLife $10 million in damages. Nintendo disagrees with the decision, as Nintendo does not infringe iLife’s patent and the patent is invalid. Nintendo looks forward to raising those issues with the district court and with the court of appeals.»
Nintendo probably wants to watch itself, as $10m is a fraction of the $144m it was originally being sued for.
However, Nintendo does have one massive card to play. After a row with Philips in 2014, which it looked destined to lose, Nintendo signed a global patent license (GPL) agreement to stop all this legal nonsense.
Thing is — that was for gaming. This is a whole new.. erm… game. Whether the GPL extends to the healthcare sector is something for the next judge.
All of this is doing nothing to help Nintendo’s otherwise successful comeback which has seen rave reviews for the Nintendo Switch, the company’s hybrid big screen and portable device which succeeded the lacklustre Wii U.
This week, the company released Mario x Rabbids Kingdom Battle — a game which most fans have said would be better without either Mario or the Rabbids, depending on your allegiance. µ
