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Information Technology News Nintendo faces lawsuit over Wiimote but appears safe
Information Technology News Nintendo faces lawsuit over Wiimote but appears safe | Nintendo faces lawsuit over Wiimote but appears safe |
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| by Stan Beer | |
| Sunday, 10 December 2006 | |
  
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An examination of both devices and their means of operation, however, indicates that the Wii would appear to be out of the firing line. The patent drawings of the Interlink pointing device show some superficial similarities in both appearance and controls to the Wii, including the shape and trigger control. The purpose of the Interink device is obviously intended for a different application to Wii. However, the key question of the lawsuit will be whether the technology used by Wii to achieve its wireless motion sensitivity is just another application of the patented motion sensitive technology developed by Interlink. Interlink is claiming to have suffered damages including the loss of royalties that it should have gained from Nintendo's use of the Wiimote. There is, however, a key difference between the Wiimote and the Interlink device in the method of their operation. The Wiimote achieves its motion sensitivity through translating the three-dimensional movement of the controller through space into actions on the screen. The Interlink patent describes a device-mounted pressure sensitive pad to move a mouse pointer ("a flexible material mounted such that pressure applied to the flexible material in different directions and positions acts to change the electrical relationship between the conductive elements on the board and thereby vary an output signal from the electronic circuit"). Obviously, this is different to how Wii works. Nintendo will not comment on the lawsuit but the chances are that it will not lose like Sony did when it got pinged for royalties by Immersion for the use of rumble technology. {moscomment} |
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