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Nintendo Loses Wii Patent Infringement Lawsuit, Ordered to Pay $10 Million

Nintendo Co. Ltd. President Satoru Iwata displays a new smaller remote control device as he makes a key cameo appearance at the annual Tokyo Game Show in Makuhari, east of Tokyo, Friday, Sept. 16, 2005. Wowing the audience with the new device, as simple as a TV remote switch, for Nintendo's Revolution machine, Iwata said "We thought about how everyone in the family uses the TV remote, but some people don't want to even touch the game controller." (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Jury in Dallas, Texas today ordered Nintendo to pay US$10 Million to iLife saying that Nintendo has infringed on iLife’s motion sensing patent by incorporating the technology in the Wii-mote without permission.

In a statement provided to Glixel (link):

“On Aug. 31, 2017, a jury in Texas found that certain Wii and Wii U video game systems and software bundles infringed a patent belonging to iLife Technologies Inc. related to detecting if a person has fallen down,”

“The jury awarded iLife $10 million in damages. Nintendo disagrees with the decision, as Nintendo does not infringe iLife’s patent and the patent is invalid. Nintendo looks forward to raising those issues with the district court and with the court of appeals.”

It would seem that Nintendo is not going to go down with a fight, arguing that although both iLife’s devices and Nintendo’s Wii-mote uses accelerometers, both had dissimilar ways of utilising them. Only time will tell whether Nintendo actually infringes on iLife’s patents.