Nintendo is officially down $21 million. After a recent court ruling that declared Nintendo the loser in a patent infringement case, Nintendo appealed the $21 million penalty sum, hoping to have the charge reduced. Anascape Ltd. was the plaintiff in the case (and potential receiver of large amounts of cash), claiming that Nintendo violated their patents when making the GameCube, Classic, Wavebird, and Wiimote controllers.
A judge denied Nintendo's appeal, finding that the sum was fair based on the evidence. Anascape, obviously, was happy about the outcome, with the lead council saying, "We appreciate the Court's thoughtful consideration in upholding the jury's decision. Although not a giant corporation like Nintendo, Anascape has every right to protect its technology."
Since the patent affects all of Nintendo's most recent controllers, we wonder if this will have any impact on Nintendo's future designs or technologies.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-30-2008 @ 4:59PM
Ghen said...
They might as well buy Anascape with the mountains of money the Wii and DS are printing now that they lost the case.
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7-01-2008 @ 7:48AM
qwho said...
...And fire every single employee of that company.
6-30-2008 @ 6:30PM
Gendreavus said...
Ehhh...somebody screwed up the URL. They made it http://http//...there isn't even a colon in the second one.
Reply
6-30-2008 @ 6:32PM
Candace Savino said...
fixed, thanks :)
6-30-2008 @ 6:36PM
Gendreavus said...
No problem.
Oops...It looks like it decided that the example in my comment was a url. That thing isn't going to take anybody anywhere.
6-30-2008 @ 6:54PM
Discosis said...
Anascape sure looks like a legitimate country as opposed to a patent troll, doesn't it?
Reply
6-30-2008 @ 7:34PM
Stephen said...
I wouldn't want to play rayman raving rabbids with this thing.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=OLIVAAAAEBAJ&printsec=drawing&zoom=4&dq=Anascape#PPA32,M1
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7-01-2008 @ 4:43AM
MastrCake said...
No problem for nintendo. After all, the Wii DOES print money...
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.nintendowiifanboy.com/media/2008/06/wii_prints_money_sm.gif
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7-01-2008 @ 11:50AM
SegaPleaseMakePanzerDragoonWii! said...
Bottom line: don't rip people off and then refuse to give them the money that they deserve for something that you know they created. It's just that simple. Nintendo is pretty thorough, I'm sure that they knew what patents their products may have been infringing on when they designed and released them, but they figured hell, it's worth the gamble, maybe we'll get away with it. Nintendo got busted being a scumbag, refused to pay up, and now they have to pay, probably much more than they would have had to had they settled out of court like Microsoft did. The real question here is why Sony was never named in the suit. Perhaps they settled early and privately? Weird.
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