Wii ban wanted

This makes perfect sense! Obviously Nintendo is stealing all the marketshare from Hillcrest Labs' own gaming console that we've seen all over the place. It's totally not some ploy to just extort a quick settlement out of a larger company in a completely different market.

Wonder why they didn't sue Xavix a few years ago though.

I hope they succeed in stopping Wii imports into the US. I hope they stop importing other consoles, and consumer electronics as well. Maybe then the unwashed masses will notice that something is wrong when they get another 'Not available in the US because of legal reasons" message when they want to purchase the Newest Cool Gadget(TM).

When will the US consumer wake up and have the US Patent office SHUT DOWN.

Then people with REAL products can go to the patent office and have thier worked patented properly.

No more trolls patenting things like M$ is with IE8 being used to access the Internet. 

Can't you only patent things that are non-obvious in the US? Unless they applied for the patent in 1970 this lawsuit is scurrilous.

Hillcrest are suing Nintendo, yet their news page is full of links mentioning the Wii controller and their own raising their profile. Tis interesting to find out why 2 years after releasing their product, they want to sue for a slice of Nintendo's pie....oh wait how stupid of me! It's all about the money, no one appears to want to control their TV by waving their hand about, but are buying Wii's by the bucket load.

Great damage would be done to Nintendo if the Wii is baned. As the there is no competing product being damaged, in terms of sales. The judge is not going to allow a bane on the Wii. Depending on how much Nintendo is willing to pay it could go either way on the litigation. Patents are not the clear slam dunk that they have been. New rules make them much easier to defeat. Also finding prior art is much faster with the internet. Rather interesting that it has taken so long for the patent holder to come forward and claim damage. Too soon to tell what will happen, but banes on the Wii will not be one of them.

It's not in UK, at least it's not often in stock, and there are already cries that there will be very few in stock for Christmas this year.

Maybe if it's banned from USA the rest of the world will get one this Christmas! ;-)

It's not whether Nintendo is infringing on HillCrest's patents with a product that competes with HillCrest products, it's the use of the idea which HillCrest has patented without paying them for it's use. Whether you agree with it or not, if HillCrest has patents that Nintendo's infringing upon, then HillCrest is well within their rights to sue them. Unless copyright law is re-written, this is how it is. 

If Nintendo has good reason to believe they will lose in court, you can bet Nintendo will settle it out of court. HillCrest will get a butt load of money from Nintendo, and possibly a royalty for every Wii controller sold from that moment on. They don't want to stop the sale of the Wii. Why? Because HillCrest patented this idea so that other companies would license it from them, they didn't want to make any products using the idea themselves. They just want what they believe their entitled to.

I hate it when these 'fake' companies have these patents.


I think if a company doesn't product what they claim to invent they shoud loose their patent. And if that so called company can't sell its stuff, how can it claim damages that if a better prodiuct from someone else sells better.


Waaaa my product sucks ass, so I am going to sue nintendo.. they hurt me waaa. I want damages....


Ovious inventions should not be allowed to get a patent

But the unique way to do it could be patent if it equired a lot of r&d and money.

I am sure there is 10-20 different ways of making a motion sensor.

But the patent office has a hard time to define ovious. Paper clip anyone?

A shift in sales geographically wise could be good for Nintendo financially since the US dollar is less than the Euro. Banning certain import items is becoming more and more like censorship of goods contrary to censorship of expression or information... 

Patenting is like a double edged sword bad for consumers and good for patent trolls. Patent trolls sit on the patent and wait for their prey to build up on sales and profit and jump in for the killing like scavengers. They don't have any work just leave the marketing work, product engineering, testing and federal approval and later claim that it was their infringed patent that contributed to prey's success.

The US should vigorously enforce it's patent law. It needs to go through each and every patent that has been granted in the last 19 years and forbid the import of any technology that contravenes those patents unless the appropriate fees have been paid.

Then, when Americans can't even buy a damn abacus because the patents they have allowed out are TRASH, maybe then someone will lob the appropriate fireworks under the USPTO arse and get them to clean up their act.

I Hope the Wii Doesn't get banned!!!.

The previous controller infringement upon companies was about "a controller with two analog pads".
Seriously, these patents are too broad. Patents should only include specific innovations; not theme.
While patents are important, some people abuse the privelage.