Nintendo Loses Wii Controller Patent Lawsuit Against Philips in the UK

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Last month, Philips filed a lawsuit against Nintendo, citing several patents that the company owned in which Nintendo was infringing upon with the following hardware:

Nintendo’s Wii, Wii Remote and Wii Remote Plus controllers, Nunchuk, Balance Board, Wii U console, Wii U GamePad, Wii Mini and Wii MotionPlus. The first infringement was for a patent involving motion control and a wireless device that can be controlled via a second device.


Despite a similar lawsuit by Triton Tech of Texas, USA, being stricken down – Philips actually snagged two wins regarding those pieces of hardware. The second infringement was found in the ecosystems within the Wii U and its GamePad, which Philips also won in court.

Judge Colin Birss had this to say in the U.K. High Court:

“The common general knowledge did not include a device combining a physical motion sensor with a camera and the reasons advanced by Nintendo for putting those two sensors together in one unit are unconvincing.”

Lastly, Birss did not rule in favor for the third patent, which involved creating a custom user in a virtual environment. Philips is also suing Nintendo over the same patents in other countries and regions like the United States, France, and Germany.

Nintendo isn’t phased, from what it seems, if their latest presser is anything to go by:

“Nintendo has a long history of developing innovative products while respecting the intellectual property rights of others. Nintendo is committed to ensuring that this judgment does not affect continued sales of its highly acclaimed line of video game hardware, software and accessories and will actively pursue all such legitimate steps as are necessary to avoid any interruptions to its business.”

So do you guys think Philips is simply patent trolling Nintendo? Have we ever seen them even using said patents in any shape or form?

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