Nintendo Triumphs In Maryland Patent Suit

A Maryland U.S. District Court Judge has dismissed at suit by IA Labs CA, LLC claiming that Nintendo’s Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus software infringed on one of their patents (U.S. Patent No. 7,121,982).  Rick Flamm, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of Legal & General Counsel stated, “Nintendo has a passionate tradition of developing innovative products while respecting the intellectual property rights of others. We vigorously defend patent lawsuits when we firmly believe that we have not infringed another party’s patent. We refuse to succumb to patent trolls.”

This is the third patent lawsuit that Nintendo has won this year so far.  Patent suits like this have become commonplace in the last few years, most famously the lawsuits vs. Sony and Microsoft by a company called Immersion, which sued the two console juggernauts in 2002 for their use of rumble technology in their controllers.  Microsoft settled out of court, while Sony lost a court contest, paying $90.7 million in damages.  The lawsuit is widely held as the reason why the Sony PlayStation 3 console controllers came without DualShock functionality until later in the product’s life-cycle.