Nintendo Loses Controller Patent Lawsuit

kryogen1x alerts slashdot to coverage at 1up indicating that Nintendo controller may soon become scarce - Nintendo lost in court to Anascape over analog sticks in their Wii and GameCube controllers.

[Omegasyde]

They won't become rare, its just that Nintendo has to pay a $^#$^load for licensing of the technology and backpay for the controller.

[SpecialSauce]

and they cant sell gamecubes anymore wooooooooooooooooooow i didn't know they were selling them at all.

[Alexander Roy]

Tell that everyone who is trying to play Brawl and actually wants to win.

[SpecialSauce]

play gamecube

[Skerj]

Why didn't they just pay them off to prevent all of this?

[kesvalk]

why only Nintendo controlers? every controller in the market have this damn analogic sticks....

[titntin]

They must use a working priciple thats patented.

It simply means they will have to cough up some money. Everyone wants a slice of Ninty pie...

[Kholinar]

Sony and MS already paid the trolls.

[mirroredderorrim]

Bastard patent trolls.

[codeazrael]

Just imagine, this company can ask for however much they want from Nintendo or shut Nintendo down!!!!!

Now that's just an epic fail of epic proportions!!!!

[Bladestar]

nahhh... the wii cost to little to make... Nintendo's wii 10th years old technology can practically be found in the garbage... all Nintendo got to do is open another recycle facility and walla! a bunch of wiis...

[Zerodin]

Maybe a company will try to sue for something that's still being MADE!

[blazing01]

he is a fanboy for 360 or ps3

[himdeel]

...they could've written the check yesterday. At the end of the day they wont be starving or out on the street begging for change.

[n00bzRtehgey]

Um. Nintendo practically invented the analogue stick. leave them alone. if anyone needs to get sued over this, it's Fony.

[moja]

Well, after reading this jump I concluded that while the big 3 may be guilty of some success, it seems that this Anascape is nothing but a patent troll and has waited years to file this crap (since Gamecube?), and have a buddy relationship with this Texas district court, who in turn is known for bringing the hammer down quite readily on patent infringements. Anyway, there should be a statute of limitations on this sort of thing from an 'IP company'. I can see some old guy going 'Oh, snap!' to the discovery of his patent in someone else's work, but for a company (who's business it is to spam patents knowing the industry's potential ramifications) to play a greedy ninja is f'ed up.

[hairlessape]

people sure are quick to call Anascape patent trolls without providing any proof.

I've owned every Nintendo system, and every Playstation. I like both companies and am bummed by this ruling. But what if this was software, and it was Microsoft or some other big company being sued, I'm willing to bet the same people that are quick to bash Anascape would flip their opinion.

There is a reason MS and Sony didn't go to court over this, Nintendo was foolish to try and win this.