Philips Sues Nintendo for Infringing on Its Patents

The infamous CD-i manufacturer tries to halt Wii and Wii U production, claiming Nintendo stole its concepts.

By Jake Shapiro. Posted 05/15/2014 11:00 2 Comments     ShareThis

As Stephen Colbert pointed out on his show last night, patent lawsuits are a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States these days. If you can’t make money off your ideas, you can still sue other people for coming up with similar ideas. Dutch electronics giant Philips is doing just that, allegedly suing Nintendo in the district court of the wonderful state of Delaware for infringing on two of its patents with Wii and Wii U.

The first patent was filed in 1996, a “Virtual Body Control Device” which is “an interactive system for which a user can remotely control devices in an intuitive manner.” The second patent is a “User Interface System Based on Pointing Device,” which sounds vaguely like the Wii Remote. Nintendo was made aware of these claims in 2011, but now Philips is looking to sue for damages.

Philips is looking to halt Nintendo’s production of Wii and Wii U, as well as monetary compensation “of up to three time the damages caused by Nintendo’s alleged infringements.” Nintendo fans don’t need to panic yet, though– this is only the latest in a long line of companies who have tried suing Nintendo over its Wii technology since the console launched in 2006.

Of course, Nintendo and Philips have a history together. As detailed in the recently-released book Console Wars, Nintendo secretly conspired with Philips in the early 1990s to go behind Sony’s back and collaborate on a CD-based SNES peripheral, angering Sony enough that the company would eventually use its CD technology to launch PlayStation. Nintendo and Philips’ partnership ultimately failed, as the lasting fruits of its labor would be the infamous Mario and Zelda games on Philips’ unsuccessful CD-i console.

Source: IGN

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