Nintendo Loses Appeal Against $10 Million Motion Control Patent Case
Nintendo has lost one of its appeals with regards to the lawsuit over motion-sensing accelerometer patent held by iLife Technologies. The Japanese company was forced $10 million back in August after the Texas-based health firm claimed that the Nintendo Wii controller infringed upon six of their patents.
The U.S Court of Appeals upheld the decision made by a Texas jury to award iLife with damages stating that Nintendo infringed on a patent belonging to iLife Technologies with its Wii and Wii U systems. According to the original lawsuit, both systems used accelerometer technology in order to track the speed and motion of a player's hands in response to their surroundings, a technology whose patent is owned by iLife.
The healthcare developer said that the technology was planned for use in medical monitors that would detect sudden movement, such as an elderly person falling down, tracking of infants, and call for emergency response. The $144 million infringement case which began four years ago saw a verdict in favour of iLife who originally sought damages of $4 for every Wii unit sold.
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Nintendo has vowed to appeal the case stating that patent was invalid due to an improperly written description. This defence was denied by the recent ruling enforcing the decision made months ago. With this verdict, Nintendo also lost one of its avenues for appeal against the case. However, it can try again after the presiding trial judge has issued her judgement.
iLife was originally accused of "patent trolling" having sued FitBit for similar reasons, a case that was settled out of court. However, iLife defended against accusations saying that the company and its CEO Michael Lehrman are the original inventors of the accelerometer technology used by Fitbit and Nintendo. The company further stated that it does not enforce any patents that it did not develop.
