Nintendo loses controller court room battle
NINTENDO HAS lost a court room battle with Texas-based Anascape Ltd.
The Judge in charge of proceedings, Ron Clark, has rejected Nintendo's request for a new trial.
Clark said he will put a ban on the sale of the controllers starting tomorrow, July 23rd, unless Nintendo posts a bond or puts royalties into an escrow account.
Anascape's patent covers certain configurations of the controller that allows the analogue stick to control six types of motions at the same time. The inventor, Brad Armstrong, allegedly spent years developing game controllers in his garage after "he became fascinated with computers including video games'" in the late 1970s, according to Anascape lawyer Doug Cawley.
Cawley had argued that Anascape was entitled to a ban on the Nintendo controllers because Anascape wants to enter the market.
The controllers covered in the case include the Wii Classic Controller, Wavebird controller and original Nintendo Gamecube controller. The Wii Nunchuck is not covered by the litigation claims.
The lawsuit is worth an estimated $21 million for Anascape.
However, Nintendo is already planning on appealing the decision in a U.S. Court of Appeals - which would allow the ban to be put on hold while the case is being re-heard.
"Nintendo was already planning to appeal this case to the Federal Circuit court," said Nintendo spokesman Charlie Scibetta.
"The recent ruling by the trial court does not impact that decision." Scibetta added.
Sony already licensed the patent in 2004 and Microsoft settled lawsuit claims on May 1, just before the trial began.
However, Sony has had plenty of controller litigation problems of its own, recently replacing the Sixaxis controller with the Dualshock 3 which was delayed due to vibrational technology patent problems. µ
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I really don't understand how Anascape are managing this. I mean, supposedly he's been developing these ideas since the 1970s... so why did he only file for the patents in question:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=33&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22Armstrong%3B+Brad+%22&OS=%22Armstrong;+Brad+%22&RS=%22Armstrong;+Brad+%22
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=2&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=anascape&OS=anascape&RS=anascape

: after the release of both Nintendo's N64 controllers (with analogue stick and rumble pak) and Sony's PS1 DualShock (with two analogue and vibration bits)?

I mean, if you believe the patents he even invented the trackball (in 1996) though according to wikipedia it was actually invented in 1952.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackball

I think that these patents are all obvious extentions of their component's uses and all of them have prior art in the same or similar fields.

I hope Nintendo wins this one and teaches this patent troll a lesson...
I this joker has no case to start with. Not only was there prior art in the form of Trackball, but also in IBM's trackpad. There is not much difference between the motion of a trackpad and a controller's analogue stick.

Sony and Microsoft settled too soon and have lost out. They should have battled this guy as he is so obliviously a patent whore.
Is this Ron Clark the famous one?

I really hate US for this reason, anyone can put a lawsuit due to unlogical reasons.

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Cawley had argued that Anascape was entitled to a ban on the Nintendo controllers because Anascape wants to enter the market.
If this guy said me that, laughing out loud right on his face is not an option is a must.
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lol