Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Remember that whole Hillcrest Laboratories thing and the Anascape debacle? Seems Nintendo just can't catch a break, as another small company has stepped up and claimed patent infringement against Nintendo for its Wiimote. The latest, filed on November 10th, comes courtesy of Motiva, a small company based out of Ohio. They claim that Nintendo has infringed on U.S. patent (7,292,151) titled "Human Movement Measurement System."

Motiva is claiming royalties, damages, and attorney fees for their patent, which was originally filed as a rehabilitation aid, however, in the applications section of their patent, they do list video games. So Nintendo and Motiva will now do the courtroom shuffle sometime soon and we'll be sure to update you all when there's more on the matter.

The panicked consumer is a predictable beast. Upon hearing that the Wii's Classic Controller might be withdrawn from sale in the near future, more and more customers have been scurrying to pick up the sleek, Virtual Console-compatible pad. Sales at Amazon have shot up by 207% after a court threatened to ban further sales of the $19.99 peripheral unless Nintendo coughed up a bond.

As the Classic Controller is still on sale around the 'net, we can only assume that Nintendo did indeed pay up, though the company isn't out of the woods yet: Nintendo will be taking its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where it will hope to prevent an outright ban.

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.