Nintendo fined $21m in infringement dispute

15 May 2008 13:28 GMT / By Verity Burns

Nintendo has been found guilty of patent infringement while designing controllers for GameCube and Wii.

The gaming giant has been ordered to pay a small East Texas-based gaming company $21 million in damages.

Anascape Ltd filed the lawsuit in 2006, stating that its patent was infringed by Nintendo in the Wii Classic, WaveBird and Gamecube controllers.

A federal jury found in favour of Anascape, however Nintendo spokesman Charlie Scibetta said the company will seek an appeal and expects the court to reduce the award "significantly".

Scibettra also added that he and Nintendo were pleased no infringement was found with the motion-sensing technology used in the Wii and Nunchuk controllers.

It seems Anascape went a bit lawsuit happy back in 2006, as it also sued Microsoft for patent infringements on its game controllers. However, the companies reached an out-of-court agreement before the start of the trial against Nintendo.

When asked about the details of the agreement on 1 May, Microsoft said in a statement that terms of the settlement were confidential.

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Gaming, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo, GameCube, Microsoft, EA, Activision, Sony