Nintendo Ordered to Pay $21 Million to Anascape
By Stephany on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 7:21 AM PST In Game Related Laws, Game Related Science, Gamer Life, Games Industry, Hardware, Microsoft, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nintendo
Poor Nintendo, they will be broke after having to fork over $21 million dollars for patent infringement on gaming controllers. Yeah right, like $21 million would even snap their purse strings; plus, I am sure they will appeal this decision.
This lawsuit (which was filed in 2006) between the gaming giant and Anascape, a small gaming company in Texas, was won by Anascape and the court found Nintendo guilty of infringement over controllers for the Wii Classic, WaveBird and Gamecube although motion-sensing technology was not included in the patent case.
Anascape also sued Microsoft, but instead going to court, Bill Gates & Co. opted for the “settle out of court” approach and whipped out the checkbook.
While stating that they will appeal this decision (see, I told ya!), Nintendo expects the damages to be reduced – which means one of two things: a) they will loose the appeal and fork over $21 million, or b) Anascape will get much less – maybe even half. We will keep you updated on these proceedings.
Via: GamesIndustry.biz
