Nintendo Controllers Face U.S. Ban

Nintendo's Wii Classic, WaveBird and GameCube controllers may become very scarce in the U.S. following a judge's decision to ban their sale.

The ban is the result of a patent infringement lawsuit filed against Nintendo by a company called Anascape, a small firm in Texas that claimed the controllers in question violated 12 of its patents. The company was awarded $21 million in damages, as well as an order halting the sale of the controllers.

The ban will be postponed, however, while Nintendo takes the matter to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The company will have to post a bond or put royalties into an escrow account, but will be free to continue selling the controllers when it does, although the WaveBird and GameCube controllers are no longer being offered in the U.S.

Doug Cawley, a lawyer for Anascape, claimed the ban was justified because his client wants to enter the market, but Nintendo has "clogged the channel." Anascape's technology is also being used by Sony and Microsoft in their consoles, but Sony licensed the patent in 2004, while Microsoft settled the lawsuit filed against it on May 1, just prior to the start of the trial.

Source: GamesIndustry

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Looks like Nintendo will have to follow what MS did and settle up with Anascape.

To be honest this whole thing sounds to me like Anascape made a patent and sat on it until a situation like this occured where they could sue a couple of bigger companies for money and then get licenses afterwards to sue the tech.

Armed with this news. I think I will go buy a few extra classic controllers to save for Ebay auctioning.

Yeah, this sounds like patent hogging to me. Anascape wants to enter the market but Nintendo has "clogged the channel"? This is like claiming that the government you're running from your basement is getting its "style cramped" by those silly people out in Washington DC (or London or Geneva or wherever).

It's really a shame that they let any idiot with a chip on his shoulder file a lawsuit for millions of dollars these days.

Another BS patent trolling suit.

lemme get this straight

1. Nintendo reveals first controller with an analogue stick for the N64. It's primitive by today's standards but it is successful and works well

2. Sony put 2 sticks on their controllers (beat THAT nintendo!) and register with these anascape twats

3. Anascape sues nintendo for beating them to it.

infuriating bollocks, is what i call it

So...why wasn't this case filed when the gamecube was originally released? Yanno..back in 2001? Or, hell, how about when the controller was originally unveiled, prior to that? You mean it took this company 5 years to realize "Oh, hey..that controller design looks similiar to ours! We'd better do something about it!" And enter the market? With a controller for a console that's virtually dead (barring the backwards compatibility on the Wii)?

I've not done heavy research on Anascape, but it seems to me it sat on a patent, then went up to each of the big console manufacturers and said "Gimme money!!"

Necrohydra:
So...why wasn't this case filed when the gamecube was originally released? Yanno..back in 2001? Or, hell, how about when the controller was originally unveiled, prior to that? You mean it took this company 5 years to realize "Oh, hey..that controller design looks similiar to ours! We'd better do something about it!" And enter the market? With a controller for a console that's virtually dead (barring the backwards compatibility on the Wii)?

I've not done heavy research on Anascape, but it seems to me it sat on a patent, then went up to each of the big console manufacturers and said "Gimme money!!"

In a way it was clever of the to come up with their thing before it became the norm, but suing Nintendo for putting 2 of their own sticks on their controllers? and now?! it's childish, to say the least.

Anyone know the actual patents Anascape is talking about?

But this 4-5 year wait(can't remember and don't care) isn't even surprising, I've seen sites shut down because a few countries still had copyright on music nearly 50 years old.(I know that's copyright and not a patent but it's basically about the same thing, using something that someone else wants money for).

Necrohydra:
So...why wasn't this case filed when the gamecube was originally released? Yanno..back in 2001? Or, hell, how about when the controller was originally unveiled, prior to that? You mean it took this company 5 years to realize "Oh, hey..that controller design looks similiar to ours! We'd better do something about it!" And enter the market? With a controller for a console that's virtually dead (barring the backwards compatibility on the Wii)?

Call me cynical if you like (and indeed I am), but I suspect its because at the time Nintendo didn't have the money rolling in like they do now, the GC was not a great success so Anascape maybe thought it wasn't worth the risk to try and get money out of them then. Now the Wii has been a huge global success they probably think the time is right to get themselves a big wad of cash.

As far as I've gathered after a quick google search, Anascape design sensors. It doesn't suprise me that something like this has come to light. The amount of licensing that goes into components of pretty much any electronic device are ridiculous, and some of it is a very weird grey area.

Think about it, how many parts in your average iPod do you think are made by Apple?

fair play to anazcape, they are millionaires.

Yet another reason why America catches so much flak from the international community. Stupid people suing over stupid crap just because they want some easy way to make money. Do you think they would have made $21 million plus the unknown amount from Microsoft if they marketed before Nintendo and Microsoft? No.

Doug Cawley, a lawyer for Anascape, claimed the ban was justified because his client wants to enter the market, but Nintendo has "clogged the channel."

Heh, yeah. Whatever. Anascape is in the patent business, not the console one. We all know how crooked the patent business is.

How can you tell a lawyer is lying... ?

;-)

Colonel Sanders:
Yet another reason why America catches so much flak from the international community. Stupid people suing over stupid crap just because they want some easy way to make money. Do you think they would have made $21 million plus the unknown amount from Microsoft if they marketed before Nintendo and Microsoft? No.

it could be called stupid or it could be called pure Genius, make a patent, wait then cash in, its like an almost zero cost investment just waiting to hit a motherload!

pha kin su pah:

Colonel Sanders:
Yet another reason why America catches so much flak from the international community. Stupid people suing over stupid crap just because they want some easy way to make money. Do you think they would have made $21 million plus the unknown amount from Microsoft if they marketed before Nintendo and Microsoft? No.

it could be called stupid or it could be called pure Genius, make a patent, wait then cash in, its like an almost zero cost investment just waiting to hit a motherload!

Still, shows the kind of ethics the company runs on.
sadly seems like , for a while now, America is known for sue happy citizens
thikig they can ge rich.

For example (slightly off topic) a robber brok into a familys house,
and their dog attack him causing him to be cuaght. He tuns
around and sues h family for his injuries from the dog, and the bail money
he had to pay to get out of holding.

Or the bank robber that sued local goverment (can't remeber wat state) for the guilt he
suffered for killing an officer he shot that didn't have a kevlar vest.

Not the best examples, but the point i'm trying to make is that people
like to sue people if they think they'll get loads of cash quick.

Time to reform patent law and copyright law into something reasonable?

Any, at least is somewhat of a David and Goliath story and not the typical huge company crushing a start up because their new ideas are vaguely similar to something the law department at the huge company thought was worth monopolizing.

BRB, going to file a patent on controlling a computer with nose gestures, wait for 5 years after it becomes mainstream and sue every manufacturer out there

I like how they totally ignored the issue until nintendo became successful.

did you here about the burglar who fell off the roof of the place he was robbing and successfully sued the owners for not fixing their shingles?

Echolocating:
How can you tell a lawyer is lying... ?

His mouth is moving?

Patents, really seem to do nothing but hindering things.

Zukhramm:

Echolocating:
How can you tell a lawyer is lying... ?

His mouth is moving?

Patents, really seem to do nothing but hindering things.

they're very useful.....

When outside of US territorial borders.....

I hate it when natural development is stopped by lawsuits. It's like Microsoft claiming Apple ripped them off by using 64-bit now. It makes no sense her because two analog sticks is the next natural stpe, right? How can you patent that? Slugs can't patent the next level of human evolution, can they?

TheGreenManalishi:

1. Nintendo reveals first controller with an analogue stick for the N64. It's primitive by today's standards but it is successful and works well

The N64 stick is actually very different to the ones in other controllers. It's a little work of engineering art with gears from the stick driving the sensors. In terms of accuracy it's ahead of the sticks used today, but more expensive and ultimately less reliable (the gears wear out).

America has the most bizarre Patent Laws on the planet. It's the only country I know of where you can patent something that EVERYONE already makes and get away with it...

The_Mop:
As far as I've gathered after a quick google search, Anascape design sensors. It doesn't suprise me that something like this has come to light. The amount of licensing that goes into components of pretty much any electronic device are ridiculous, and some of it is a very weird grey area.

Think about it, how many parts in your average iPod do you think are made by Apple?

It's not so much the components that get patented, but the processes and techniques. And that's where the grey areas come in. The more vaguely you can describe a process and get a patent for it, the easier it is to sue other people for infringement/demand royalties. Got a patent for infra-red movement detection? Sue every computer mouse manufacturer that uses infrared mice (or demand royalties). It's easy as that (says the non-lawyer).

@Darkong - oh, I suspected as much as well. It just doesn't make sense that a company could do nothing with a patent/technology for so long and still sue people for it. Seriously - proof of design/incorporation into current product should be included in patent law. It's ridiculous that a company can just come up with an idea, then sit on it and do nothing for however many years and sue anyone that has something remotely like it.

Necrohydra:

The_Mop:
As far as I've gathered after a quick google search, Anascape design sensors. It doesn't suprise me that something like this has come to light. The amount of licensing that goes into components of pretty much any electronic device are ridiculous, and some of it is a very weird grey area.

Think about it, how many parts in your average iPod do you think are made by Apple?

It's not so much the components that get patented, but the processes and techniques. And that's where the grey areas come in. The more vaguely you can describe a process and get a patent for it, the easier it is to sue other people for infringement/demand royalties. Got a patent for infra-red movement detection? Sue every computer mouse manufacturer that uses infrared mice (or demand royalties). It literally is easy as that.

@Darkong - oh, I suspected as much as well. It just doesn't make sense that a company could do nothing with a patent/technology for so long and still sue people for it. Seriously - proof of design/incorporation into current product should be included in patent law. It's ridiculous that a company can just come up with an idea, then sit on it and do nothing for however many years and sue anyone that has something remotely like it.

Money Grubbing jews...All of em.

Ugh, one of these threads.

This is the patent in question, issued June 14, 2005. For those bitching about them not suing Nintendo when the Gamecube came out, the patenting process was initiated in November of 2000. It takes a long time to verify a patent. They could not sue until the patent was verified.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=OLIVAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=anascape#PPA1,M1

The difference, technologically, between this controller and the ones that existed before it is that it used a plate method on the inside of the controller to detect your input while still being able to handle vibrations that don't get confused as input. A lot of the schematics involve keyboards, flight joysticks, and other types of controllers. That's as best as I can understand the document, I'm not an engineer and I don't know much about the tech beforehand.

Whether or not they're taking advantage of the system, if everyone is using a technology they patented in their controllers then it at least raises the question of who is stealing whose ideas.

L.B. Jeffries:

Whether or not they're taking advantage of the system, if everyone is using a technology they patented in their controllers then it at least raises the question of who is stealing whose ideas.

How do you judge which person is "stealing" and who's being "stolen" from? What if both companys designed this separately? What if Nintendo filed patents in America, but Anascape's came out first? What if Anascape filed an extermely primitive design for patent, then brushed it up and updated it as time went by, revising the patent?

..I really don't know enough of patent law practices to make a knowledgeable call on this. But, I know enough to see the current system allows for "think tanks" companies to think up ideas, then collect licensing/suing for other companies remotely imitating their designs, just as much as they allow for the honest design submissions.

Necrohydra:

I really don't know enough of patent law practices to make a knowledgeable call on this. But, I know enough to see the current system allows for "think tanks" companies to think up ideas, then collect licensing/suing for other companies remotely imitating their designs, just as much as they allow for the honest design submissions.

Well, they sure as hell didn't get into a lawsuit because one of them called their mom a rude name. I'm sure Nintendo has a good argument against all this or they wouldn't be appealing.

I dunno man, I'm not going to argue something I know nothing about beyond just dispelling the basic myths floating around. I don't know what to make of patent law. The s*** they pull here is nothing compared to what goes on in software patenting. Reading about how someone wants to patent a 2-D block puzzle is a good way to lose your faith in humanity.

But take the guy who invented the PS3 transistor. The main reason those things dropped in cost so dramatically was some tech guy had invented a transistor that worked perfectly with the PS3. It was way, way cheaper to make with his new model and much more efficient at getting the PS3 to cool down. It would be pretty dick if Sony just took his ideas and never cut him in on the action, despite the fact that he basically made a product and then waited for a game console to need it. Instead, Sony cut him a licensing deal and now he's laughing his ass off someplace beautiful.

But yeah, there's a lot bulls***. I just don't really know if these guys are guilty of it yet. The Federal Courts, Microsoft, and Sony don't seem to think so.

L.B. Jeffries:

Well, they sure as hell didn't get into a lawsuit because one of them called their mom a rude name. I'm sure Nintendo has a good argument against all this or they wouldn't be appealing.

I dunno man, I'm not going to argue something I know nothing about beyond just dispelling the basic myths floating around. I don't know what to make of patent law. The s*** they pull here is nothing compared to what goes on in software patenting. Reading about how someone wants to patent a 2-D block puzzle is a good way to lose your faith in humanity.

But take the guy who invented the PS3 transistor. The main reason those things dropped in cost so dramatically was some tech guy had invented a transistor that worked perfectly with the PS3. It was way, way cheaper to make with his new model and much more efficient at getting the PS3 to cool down. It would be pretty dick if Sony just took his ideas and never cut him in on the action, despite the fact that he basically made a product and then waited for a game console to need it. Instead, Sony cut him a licensing deal and now he's laughing his ass off someplace beautiful.

But yeah, there's a lot bulls***. I just don't really know if these guys are guilty of it yet. The Federal Courts, Microsoft, and Sony don't seem to think so.

Good points, however Microsoft and Sony never really had a case, however Nintendo is probably arguing that they had these joysticks being developed long before Anascape filed for the patent. However, one of Anascapes reasons for this lawsuit is it's intent to enter the market, which bemused me a little as it *almost* prooves they are a patent troll because:

Why would you be build a Gamecube controller to enter the market now? Barely anyone uses a gamecube and even if it's for the Wii market it would be such a pitifully small market that the lawsuit simply wouldn't have been worth it.

And why would you want to enter a gamecube controller into the market where the Gamecube has been taken off sale by your lawsuits?

It basically boils down to Anascape probably not planning or ever intending to enter the market, as it would be a complete waste of time. However they're probably already rolling in it from royalties from microsoft and sony, so what's a couple of million to them?

L.B. Jeffries:
But take the guy who invented the PS3 transistor. The main reason those things dropped in cost so dramatically was some tech guy had invented a transistor that worked perfectly with the PS3. It was way, way cheaper to make with his new model and much more efficient at getting the PS3 to cool down. It would be pretty dick if Sony just took his ideas and never cut him in on the action, despite the fact that he basically made a product and then waited for a game console to need it. Instead, Sony cut him a licensing deal and now he's laughing his ass off someplace beautiful.

The problem with patent law as it stands is, you don't have to MAKE a product in order to sue someone for stealing your idea. You can just get a patent for it, sit on your ass for years, and when someone finally puts out a similar thing on the market and makes money off it, you can sue them for copying a product you never actually made.

L.B. Jeffries:

But take the guy who invented the PS3 transistor. The main reason those things dropped in cost so dramatically was some tech guy had invented a transistor that worked perfectly with the PS3. It was way, way cheaper to make with his new model and much more efficient at getting the PS3 to cool down. It would be pretty dick if Sony just took his ideas and never cut him in on the action, despite the fact that he basically made a product and then waited for a game console to need it. Instead, Sony cut him a licensing deal and now he's laughing his ass off someplace beautiful.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe patents and licensing are the work of money-hungry capitalists and lawyers all the time. Credit (and a share of the profits) should be given where it's due. Heck, instead of spending the time reasearching it yourself, it's often cheaper to just buy a method developed something else. There's always something to be said for time saved.

But, I have my doubts when the products were developed in the same time period. You'd think the big 3 companies would have done their homework on what else was out there...

Ibuki:
For example (slightly off topic) a robber brok into a familys house,
and their dog attack him causing him to be cuaght. He tuns
around and sues h family for his injuries from the dog, and the bail money
he had to pay to get out of holding.

That's why if anyone breaks into your house, you shoot to kill. He cant testify against you if he's dead.

L.B. Jeffries:

This is the patent in question, issued June 14, 2005. For those bitching about them not suing Nintendo when the Gamecube came out, the patenting process was initiated in November of 2000. It takes a long time to verify a patent. They could not sue until the patent was verified.

Still begs the question, why Nintendo? It also begs the question how in the Hell did that patent get verified.
PS1 analogue controllers (and Dreamcast for that matter) work roughly the same way as the doohicky in the patent. But both are from before the year 2000, so how did the US patent office conclude the idea was unique?
I suppose they would argue that Sega and Sony are Japanese rather than American companies. So US patent doesn't apply to them. But that's pushing things when the products were freely available in the US for 2-3 years beforehand.

#Dumb question, was 2000 the year when the initial patent was filed? Or was it an amendment to an existing one?