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20 June 2014Patents

Philips defeats Nintendo in Wii patent battle

Electronics company Philips has won a UK court battle in which it accused Nintendo’s Wii device of infringing its patents.

In a judgment issued today, June 20, the UK High Court said the Japanese multinational infringed two patents, both related to detecting hand signals and motions.

Nintendo’s Wii console allows users to control what happens on screen through hand and body movements. Examples of games include Wii Tennis and Wii Boxing.

Philips has been pursuing litigation against Nintendo in the UK since 2012, and has also filed lawsuits in Germany, France and, most recently, the US.

The Dutch-based company successfully asserted two patents, EP 1,573,498, which covers a "user interface system based on a pointing device", and EP 2,093,650, which described a “model body in a virtual body”.

A third Philips patent, EP 0,808,484, called "method and apparatus for controlling the movement of a virtual body", was declared invalid.

“None of the cited prior art leads naturally to the claimed combination, and pointers to it are not in the common general knowledge,” Justice Colin Birss wrote in the judgment.

“The common general knowledge did not include a device combining a physical motion sensor with a camera, and the reasons advanced by Nintendo for putting those two sensors together in one unit are unconvincing.

“Also the common general knowledge did not include any game based on analysing hand-waving gestures,” Birss added.

Nintendo said it believes the two patents it was deemed to have infringed are invalid and will appeal against the decision.

“Nintendo has a long history of developing innovative products while respecting the IP rights of others,” the company told WIPR.

Despite losing in the UK, Nintendo did successfully manage to defend its Wii console against claims from a Texan-based company earlier this week.

Triton Tech sued Nintendo in 2010, alleging that the Wii remote, combined with an accessory, infringed its patent. However, the patent was declared "indefinite".

A damages order will be issued separately next month.

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3 December 2014   Netherlands-based electronics company Philips has resolved its patent disputes with Nintendo over technology used in the games console maker’s products.