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Nintendo wins Wii peripheral lawsuit, obtains suing company's patent portfolio
Nintendo has obtained the entire patent portfolio of exergaming company InterAction Laboratories (a.k.a. IA Labs) following an unsuccessful 2010 lawsuit alleging that Nintendo's Wii and its peripherals infringed on IA's patents. A trial court ruled in favor of Nintendo in 2012, ordering IA Labs to pay Nintendo's legal defense fees as a result. IA Labs lost a subsequent appeal last year, leading to a sheriff's sale of its assets when the company was unable to reimburse Nintendo's court costs. Nintendo then purchased IA Labs' remaining assets and patent portfolio during the sale, closing off the potential for further claims and lawsuits. While Nintendo won this particular patent battle, a federal judge recently ruled in favor of Tomita Technologies International in a lawsuit over Nintendo's patent-infringing use of its glasses-free 3D technology. Nintendo was ordered to pay a percentage of revenue earned from 3DS hardware sales to Tomita as a result of the suit.
Nintendo says it refuses to 'succumb to patent trolls' as it wins Maryland case
Nintendo issued a fairly terse press release earlier today, announcing that it has prevailed in a US patent lawsuit for the "third consecutive time this year." That particular case concerned Nintendo's Wii Balance Board accessory and Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus software, which a company called IA Labs said infringed on one of its patents (No. 7,121,982); a claim that was dismissed by the Maryland District Court judge in the case. IA Labs was also more or less dismissed as a company by Nintendo's senior vice president of legal and general counsel Rick Flamm, who said that "we vigorously defend patent lawsuits when we firmly believe that we have not infringed another party's patent," and that "we refuse to succumb to patent trolls." The company's full statement can be found after the break.
Wii Fit patent lawsuit dismissed
We know you've been unable to sleep restfully since the announcement of InterAction Laboratories' 2010 lawsuit against Nintendo, so you'll be relieved to know the situation is resolved. Nintendo announced this morning that a Maryland judge has summarily dismissed the case, which alleged that Nintendo's Wii Fit games and Balance Board accessory (among pretty much every other Nintendo peripheral) violated patents owned by IA Labs for exergaming devices.IA Labs' last announced gaming product was the "XR Station," a controller attached to a big lever, that players must exert pressure on -- push, pull, lean -- to operate. It also showed the "Sqweeze" in 2008: a Wiimote peripheral with two rubber grips to squeeze.
