Given how busy (and frequently successful) they've been over the years, it's hard not to imagine Nintendo's legal department as a razor-sharp, iron-sinewed, crack military team of litigation commandos. Kind of like a pumped-up Elite Beat Agents, only trained in the law rather than dance.
Well they're going to be out in force again soon it seems, as Nintendo is being sued once more. This time the complaint is coming from Texas-based Lonestar Inventions, over a 1993 design for a triply-effective capacitor design which it claims Nintendo stole for its hardware products. Confusingly, the company didn't contact Nintendo before filing the suit and hasn't clarified which Nintendo products are specifically at issue, although its lawyer states that the Wii is at the heart of the problem.
However, the company has a history of litigation over the technology, having already won licensing agreements from Texas Instruments and Broadcom Corp., with lawsuits against Eastman Kodak and Freescale Semiconductor Inc. currently in the works. Lonestar's offices also happen to be located in a Texas law firm. Make of that what you will.
At the moment, Nintendo is refusing to make a comment until the products and components in question are clarified. Given the fact that we have a suit with a history of success going up against Nintendo's hungry-dog-with-a-bone approach to legal entanglements, expect this one to go on for a while.
[Via Lloyds]
Contest:
6:06 PM on 06.18.2007
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whatever happened to this lawsuit?
damnit. i was trying to link to the lawsuit about the wiimote, where another company already had patents or something.
here it is.
Mr. Houghton, with all this flamebait you really are spoiling us...
why can't the companies just accept that the companies are just using their technologie in their controllers and be proud of it that their technology got that far, sjees, they even paid for the parts in the first place.
@tempus.
watch out, that guy is going to be sued for using the cheese from Fromage.co
Ooo is that air you're breathing? I breath air too, am gonna sue u for doin same as me! w00t.
@tempus... I hope you're not mad at me. Let's just put this mix up behind us.
You smokers are ruining my personal property.