While the Wii Remote technology that was first introduced to us back in 2006 gave joy to millions, some companies weren't happy about its existence. A company known as iLife filed a lawsuit roughly four years ago. Yesterday in Dallas, Texas iLife won the lawsuit of iLife Technologies Inc v. Nintendo of America Inc. according to the Rolling Stone.
The basis of the suit is the uncanny resemblance of iLife's motion-sensing technology to the Wii Remote's. To be more specific, the Wii Remote's technology has fall detection capabilities, but iLife's medically purposed technology has a patent filed for the specific type of technology that Nintendo has used in its remotes.
According to justia.com, there were roughly 20 disputed claims within the case, which included that of "A system within a communications device capable of evaluating movement of a body relative to an environment, said system comprising: a sensor..." and "...a processor that is able to determine whether said evaluated body movement is within environmental tolerance."
Other claims included were that of how the same system displayed an alarm system, and how the system could detect "dynamic and static accelerative phenomena."
iLife wanted $144 million in damages as a result of the lawsuit, but the Dallas Jury only awarded $10 million. Nintendo released the following statement in response to the court's ruling:
"On Aug. 31, 2017, a jury in Texas found that certain Wii and Wii U video game systems and software bundles infringed a patent belonging to iLife Technologies Inc. related to detecting if a person has fallen down. The jury awarded iLife $10 million in damages. Nintendo disagrees with the decision, as Nintendo does not infringe iLife's patent and the patent is invalid. Nintendo looks forward to raising those issues with the district court and with the court of appeals."
In other words, Nintendo's not giving up without a fight. After their unfulfilled hopes with the Wii U and the recent bankruptcy of their Switch Screen producer, they could use a fair victory.
Source: Rolling Stone, Justia US Law
Image: Raspberry Pi Spy
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