Nintendo wins joystick lawsuit initiated by Fenner
updated 12:35 pm EDT, Tue March 17, 2009
Nintendo wins Fenner suit
A judge in a US District Texas court has put an end to a lawsuit filed by Fenner against Nintendo over a joystick patent infringement, EETimes reported on Tuesday. The lawsuit was filed more than two years ago, in January of 2007, and focuses on a patent Fenner says it holds that Nintendo allegedly violated with the controllers used in its Wii console and the older GameCube. The jury trial set to begin today was cancelled as Judge Leonard Davis in a Tyler, Texas court dismissed the case.
The US patent, 6,297,751, for a "low-voltage joystick port interface" was acquired by Fenner from Lucent Technologies after its creation in 2001, with Fenner then pursuing claims against Alcatel, 3Com, Juniper Networks and HP. Sony was also part of the 2007 lawsuit but was dropped shortly afterwards for unknown reasons.
More recently, Nintendo was sued by Japan's Hillcrest Labs for allegedly violating four US patents relating to a spatial controller and on-screen interface for content on TVs. No other details about the lawsuit are known, but Hillcrest has licensed its Freespace motion technology for Logitech's MX Air mouse and has smaller licenses for remote controls.
