Nintendo Loses $10m Legal Case Over Motion Controls

A law suit that Nintendo didn’t Waive

It has been nearly 11 years since the Nintendo Wii invaded households throughout the world. A much-needed remedy to flagging sales the company was suffering, the Nintendo Wii and its innovative motion controller almost completely revitalised the brand. While the graphics may not have blown people’s minds, the controller had everyone wanting to try it out.

One of the major claims that Nintendo made with the product was that they had created motion controllers. Well, following a recent court hearing, Nintendo has apparently been exaggerating that claim just a little.

So, who did invent the motion controller?

Not Nintendo. At least, not according to the courts. In a report by the BBC,  Nintendo lost legal action submitted by a health company stating that the Wii Motion Controller infringed on patents they held.

In court, Nintendo argued that although the claimant, iLife, did hold a motion control patent. The argument was that it was not specific enough to apply to the utilisation of the Wii motion controller.

The courts were satisfied that Nintendo had sufficiently infringed upon the patent. Based on this iLife has been awarded $10m in damages.

This all seems very familiar

Yes, it does. We reported a little over a week ago how Nintendo was also facing legal action for the Switch controller.

At least no one wants to sue them about the Wii-U. Not yet at least,

When you look at the universal success of the Wii, legal cases were to be expected. It certainly exceeded all expectations, by ironically, being something completely different.

I once read that in Western homes, it was estimated that nearly 1 out of 2 had a Wii Console. I can not confirm this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. Practically everyone I knew owned one. When you consider it, did you know anyone who didn’t?

The legal claim submitted by iLife was based on a $4 charge per console sold. This figure was determined on sales prior to the legal action originally being submitted 5 years ago. I can’t imagine there have been many Wii sales since then.

Nintendo has said it is their intention to appeal this decision.  That being said though, with the success of the Switch, I don’t think they’re going to worry too much about this.