Patent Lawsuit Lost, Nintendo Owes $21 Million

Back in 2006, a small East Texas games company, Anascape, has sued Nintendo and Microsoft, claiming that the two companies had infringed on their patents when they had developed controllers for their gaming consoles. The Texan company had filed for a patent back in 2000 (probably for this one) for a "3D controller with vibration". Following the lawsuit, Nintendo was found guilty and ordered to pay Anascape $21 million.

The patent specifies that the controller was "a tactile feedback motor with shaft and offset weight is mounted as a component of the controller for providing vibration to be felt by a hand operating the controller. In some embodiments the sensors are pressure sensitive variable output sensors."

Unlike Nintendo, when the lawsuit was filed, Microsoft had decided to settle things out of court, but the sum paid to the Texan company has never been revealed since MS has clearly stated that the terms of the settlement were confidential. We tend to believe that the amount in question was probably much lower than $21 million.

It seems that the ruling applies to Nintendo's GameCube, Wavebird and Classic controllers; even though the jury has already made its decision, Nintendo spokesman Charlie Scibetta said that the company would seek an appeal, expecting the court to "significantly" reduce the amount of money they have to pay, while admitting that the company was pleased that no infringement was found with their Wii controller (which would've probably meant much more money to be paid).

The interesting thing regarding this entire lawsuit is that Anascape doesn't really seem to exist - the search results on Google only mention the lawsuit against Microsoft and Nintendo. Also, it is quite possible that they didn't actually build the controller, which makes their 2000 move a great one - the guys just knew for how long to wait and it seems that they were right.