Philips Seeking Ban On Wii U

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Is sure seems like Nintendo just can't catch a break these days. Patent infringement suits everywhere, sales of the Wii U are terrible, what else could go wrong? :(

The Dutch company sued Nintendo in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware on Wednesday, alleging that it infringes on patents that cover an interactive remote control system, according to the complaint.
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"Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em all around"
 
Stupid question: couldn't you make the argument that the XBone and PS4 also fall under this patent?
 
I think that Nintendo rightfully doesn't acknowledge the authority of the U.S. patent system, given how often they get picked on by so many companies.
gamerk2 said:
Stupid question: couldn't you make the argument that the XBone and PS4 also fall under this patent?
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The Playstation Eye and Kinect would, but this hurts Nintendo more since their entire game console relies on the use of the technologies that would infringe on these patents. Kinect is no longer required for XBONE and will soon go on sale as a separate device, while the Playstation Eye has always been optional from the start.
 
Innovations is so stagnant in a lot of tech companies all they have going for themselves is patent trolling.
 
Don't sell any Nintendo products in the U.S. Problem solved! Just might catch on with other tech companies as the global economy grows. U.S. patent law is broken and seriously flawed.
 
Armenius said:
I think that Nintendo rightfully doesn't acknowledge the authority of the U.S. patent system
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Maybe there's something to it because grandpa used to talk about the "defiant JAPs" back in dubya dubya two.
 
LOL...this is funny. (I just bought a Wii U last week for my kid to get on his birthday)
 
As a former Philips employee who actually used to work with the group responsible for the Odyssey and whose boss was one of the authors of several of the original video game patents, I have a bit more of a personal feel for this than many.

Although this is only my personal opinion, I would say the reason Nintendo was singled out can be summed up in one word: spite.

Basically, Nintendo violated Philips' patents on video games for YEARS before the patents ran out and never really coughed up the amounts they should have for licensing. My guess would be that Philips saw one last chance to stick the knife in deep and twist it, to try to get one last time the cash that they should have been paid in the first place.

This is strictly my own opinion though.
 
mdburkey said:
As a former Philips employee who actually used to work with the group responsible for the Odyssey and whose boss was one of the authors of several of the original video game patents, I have a bit more of a personal feel for this than many.

Although this is only my personal opinion, I would say the reason Nintendo was singled out can be summed up in one word: spite.

Basically, Nintendo violated Philips' patents on video games for YEARS before the patents ran out and never really coughed up the amounts they should have for licensing. My guess would be that Philips saw one last chance to stick the knife in deep and twist it, to try to get one last time the cash that they should have been paid in the first place.

This is strictly my own opinion though.
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Didn't Nintendo and Philips have a falling out when Miyamoto rejected their CD-based attachment that was really far into development?

Just seems like their bad blood has been there for ages. It's hard to keep in mind now that they're the underdog, but Nintendo stepped on a lot of feet and burned many bridges on their way up.
 
Also, there are certain national stereotypes that sometimes do have often have good basis in fact
And, as most of my own ancestry is Dutch, I have no problem with pointing out that the Dutch have a tendency toward having long memories and being extremely stubborn and tenacious. Nintendo should have thought about that before they ticked them off.

Or, put another way, a group of people who build their country BELOW SEA LEVEL and have been fighting the North Sea for hundreds of years (and WINNING), don't tend to give up and go away easily.
 
Neurofreeze said:
Didn't Nintendo and Philips have a falling out when Miyamoto rejected their CD-based attachment that was really far into development?

Just seems like their bad blood has been there for ages. It's hard to keep in mind now that they're the underdog, but Nintendo stepped on a lot of feet and burned many bridges on their way up.
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I'm not sure of all the details, but a lot of it started with a CD attachment for the NES that was being developed by Sony, which Nintendo backed out of, then chose Philips instead, but then never actually shipped the one from Philips, but did in turn port some NES titles to CDi. So, at that juncture, Nintendo ticked off Sony, but sort of placated Philips. However, after CDi crashed and burned, I think there was a feeling inside Philips that the NES was partly to blame for the CDi's failure -- and that Nintendo wasn't coughing up what they should to comply with licensing Philips' original patents from the Odyssey. I was a lowly peon when the later part of this was playing out and I don't know any of the real details, but I vaguely remember my bosses meeting with legal people to discuss the patents when it was all going on.

Needless to say, Nintendo was not generally held in very high regard internally at dear olde PCEC.
 
mdburkey said:
I'm not sure of all the details, but a lot of it started with a CD attachment for the NES that was being developed by Sony, which Nintendo backed out of, then chose Philips instead, but then never actually shipped the one from Philips, but did in turn port some NES titles to CDi. So, at that juncture, Nintendo ticked off Sony, but sort of placated Philips. However, after CDi crashed and burned, I think there was a feeling inside Philips that the NES was partly to blame for the CDi's failure -- and that Nintendo wasn't coughing up what they should to comply with licensing Philips' original patents from the Odyssey. I was a lowly peon when the later part of this was playing out and I don't know any of the real details, but I vaguely remember my bosses meeting with legal people to discuss the patents when it was all going on.

Needless to say, Nintendo was not generally held in very high regard internally at dear olde PCEC.
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Hey, whatever. Phillips lost me when they stopped making the best sounding tweeter in the world (The Phillips 3/4" button tweeter).
 
mdburkey said:
As a former Philips employee who actually used to work with the group responsible for the Odyssey and whose boss was one of the authors of several of the original video game patents, I have a bit more of a personal feel for this than many.

Although this is only my personal opinion, I would say the reason Nintendo was singled out can be summed up in one word: spite.

Basically, Nintendo violated Philips' patents on video games for YEARS before the patents ran out and never really coughed up the amounts they should have for licensing. My guess would be that Philips saw one last chance to stick the knife in deep and twist it, to try to get one last time the cash that they should have been paid in the first place.

This is strictly my own opinion though.
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There may be some lingering bitterness with Philips execs (if they are still there), but the Wii U was singled out because it actually IS an interactive controller.

Of course, that's such a broad term that this is almost certainly patent trolling.
 
mdburkey said:
As a former Philips employee who actually used to work with the group responsible for the Odyssey and whose boss was one of the authors of several of the original video game patents, I have a bit more of a personal feel for this than many.

Although this is only my personal opinion, I would say the reason Nintendo was singled out can be summed up in one word: spite.

Basically, Nintendo violated Philips' patents on video games for YEARS before the patents ran out and never really coughed up the amounts they should have for licensing. My guess would be that Philips saw one last chance to stick the knife in deep and twist it, to try to get one last time the cash that they should have been paid in the first place.
This is strictly my own opinion though.
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Ex-Magnavox/Philips guy here too.
I worked in their service division for several years in Tennessee in the early 90s.
I had never seen such bad management in a company before. My goal was to move to the tech support offices in Jefferson City TN and get out of the service end.
Got hit with a layoff but actually wanted to quit anyway. Now they are Gone, Gone, Gone from here altogether. The fancy corporate offices in Strawberry Plains TN is a community college extension now.
 
Who cares, the typical nintendont will say "nintendo has 6/7/8 billion in cash, they will be fine!"

I think they will be fine too.... if they made games for the premier systems. They would make a killing like Rockstar did with GTA V. GTA V has sold 2 billion since sellling the game 9 months ago.
 
mdburkey said:
I'm not sure of all the details, but a lot of it started with a CD attachment for the NES that was being developed by Sony, which Nintendo backed out of, then chose Philips instead, but then never actually shipped the one from Philips, but did in turn port some NES titles to CDi. So, at that juncture, Nintendo ticked off Sony, but sort of placated Philips. However, after CDi crashed and burned, I think there was a feeling inside Philips that the NES was partly to blame for the CDi's failure -- and that Nintendo wasn't coughing up what they should to comply with licensing Philips' original patents from the Odyssey. I was a lowly peon when the later part of this was playing out and I don't know any of the real details, but I vaguely remember my bosses meeting with legal people to discuss the patents when it was all going on.

Needless to say, Nintendo was not generally held in very high regard internally at dear olde PCEC.
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I owned a first gen CDi.
As a Magnavox/Philips employee it was "strongly suggested" we purchase a CDi at employee pricing. So I did. It was exciting at the time but I found I was actually shocked how BAD it was. Not only a worthless controller, the software offered was something nobody really wanted. It was not targeted as a gaming device; but more of an educational tool with titles like interactive atlas, encyclopedia, etc. The few games they offered were unplayable with that IR controller with the thumbstick. It wasn't even a decent CD player.
The quality of CD playback was inferior to one of their cheap CD players.
The CDi ended up on Ebay.

Out of my Philips gear I owned I still have the CDC875 6 disc changer. :D
 
These guys are really stretching with these patents and if they had merit they would have shown up when the Wii was a screaming success and not now when Nintendo is on the outs again.
 
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