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UltimatePointer Sues Nintendo And Retailers Over Patent Infringement
Texas-based company UltimatePointer LLC recently filed a complaint with the state of Texas saying that Nintendo’s Wii remote infringes on one of the company’s own patents. Retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target have also been included in the lawsuit.
UltimatePointer is claiming that the Wii infringes on its own "method for controlling movement of a computer display cursor based on a point-of-aim of a pointing device." Interestingly, UltimatePointer filed for its patent (no. 7,746,321) way back in May of 2005, but the patent didn’t receive official status until June of 2010. UltimatePointer didn’t file its lawsuit until a few weeks ago.
On Reddit, one of the employees at JJGames talked about how his company – as well as other retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, K-Mart, and Sears – have also been sued for "using, selling, offering for sale, and/or importing the accused products" and for "inducing others (including end users) to use, sell, offer [the Wii] for sale.” JJGames claims that it’s only sold 12 Wii units in total in the state of Texas, and that all of them have been used systems, so it will be interesting to see how this effects the case.
If UltimatePointer wins this lawsuit, it is asking Nintendo to play "a reasonable royalty" as well as lawyers/court fees and all "enhanced damages" that UltimatePointer feels are due.
Sounds like an interesting case, and we’ll keep you posted as more develops. You can also read a copy of the filed suit in the following PDF link.
[Source: Joystiq]
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