Nintendo Settles Patent Disputes with Phillips

Companies sign global agreement to bring issue to a close.

By Andy Hoover. Posted 12/02/2014 15:00 Comment on this     ShareThis

The global nature of today’s market can make patent issues between companies from different countries rather complex. The proved to be the case with a recent dispute between Phillips, from the Netherlands, and Nintendo.

Phillips alleged that technology related to the Wii, Wii Remote, Motion Plus, and Wii U, infringed upon patents it had filed regarding technology for tracking player motion to control a game. These claims had been ongoing since 2011 and appeared to be leaning in Phillips’ favor with an initial court ruling in the UK coming out backing its side of the story. Nintendo filed an appeal for this ruling, meanwhile, and cases in other parts of Europe and North America were ongoing.

Thankfully, both companies have decided to forgo the legal drama and come to an agreement with Nintendo stating, “Nintendo and Philips will cross license portions of each company’s patent portfolio. This agreement ends patent invalidity proceedings brought against Philips by Nintendo in multiple countries, as well as patent infringement proceedings brought by Philips against Nintendo.”

Nintendo hasn’t said anything regarding the financial impact of these agreements, such as who pays who, but at the very least it avoids further patent conflicts with Phillips as both companies appear to have come to terms with overlaps in their patent portfolios. Now, we can only hope this incident will have brought the two companies closer together so they can finally work on the long awaited successor to the CD-i.

Source: Nintendo Life

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