Nintendo of America has seemingly spent the last decade in the courtroom defending itself in patent lawsuits. But now, a jury in Dallas, Texas has awarded $10 million to iLife Technologies Inc. after finding that the Wii Remote infringed on their motion-sensing accelerometer technology.
Glixel reports that the company filed a $144 million patent infringement case against Nintendo four years ago, seeking a $4 per unit royalty payment related to the 36 million Wii consoles that were sold in the six years before the case was filed.
Nintendo had argued that the patent that iLife had filed was invalid, as the description wasn’t properly written.
“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,” Nintendo of America shared in a statement.
“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.”
iLife use their technology to monitor infants to help prevent sudden infant death syndrome and with the elderly to watch out for falls. However, iLife has argued that the patented technology could be used in other applications, and had been used by Nintendo to create the Wii Remote.
Nintendo will, as can be expected, now appeal the decision.
