14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo has announced that a judge from a United States District Court has dismissed a lawsuit that was brought against the Japanese company regarding a potential patent infringement related to the Nintendo Wii home gaming console.
It's just one of the many law suits that have been filed against Nintendo after the runaway success of the Wii made the company very wealthy and a lot of smaller firms were hoping that the court could allow them to take home a share of that amount.
On June 8, the current suit, filed by Guardian Media Technologies, was summarily dismissed by the judge. Rick Flamm, who is the senior vice president of legal counsel for Nintendo of America, declared that “We are very pleased with the Court’s decision.” He added that “Nintendo vigorously defends patent lawsuits. At the earliest stages of this case, Nintendo convinced the Court to dismiss this case as Guardian’s patent had nothing to do with Nintendo’s products.”
Nintendo is trying hard to make sure that all the cases brought against it are solved as quickly as possible so that they cannot affect in any way the image of the company. Nintendo sells its consoles to a wide array of customers and news about a big law suit against it, which deals in both hardware and software, might makes some customers reconsider their gaming needs.
On the other hand, Nintendo is actively pursuing companies that are making devices similar to its controllers, winning a case against peripheral producer Nyko, which created something looking very much like the Nunchuk.
The most recent NPD Group data show that the Wii is the second best selling console in the United States, even if the Nintendo home console saw a slump in sales when compared to the numbers of May 2008. Maybe if sales go down, the number of law suits will also be dropping.