Bonum Certa Men Certa

Japan (Kyoto) Based Nintendo Suffers From Texas, the World's Capital of Patent Litigation

Where judges put their own financial interests before the rule of law

Rodney Gilstrap



Summary: Nintendo finds patent hostility in the US market, with particular judgments that are favourable to software patents and pass the burden to the accused

THE USPTO is generally regarded as the default or de facto patent office, as WIPO, for example, does not grant patents and the US is an essential market for many multinational companies. There's nothing controversial about that statement. The EPO may want to be in the same position, but given Battistelli's gaslighting and terror, it's hardly surprising that EP applications from the US sank like a rock. The EPO is quickly becoming irrelevant and EPs granted over the course of decades lose their value.



Tomita Technologies (Japanese person, Seijiro Tomita, a former employee of Sony), fighting with Nintendo of Japan, may soon find itself wrestling in the US Supreme Court. There are "implications for software and electronics companies," says this new report, as it's about the doctrine of equivalents (covered here before):

Tomita Technologies has asked the US Supreme Court to hear its lawsuit against Nintendo over 3D imaging patents and rule on the doctrine of equivalents.

In its petition, Tomita said that the case has implications for software and electronics companies, particularly the importance of objective guidelines to provide certainty when determining equivalence between hardware and software implementations of patented technology.

In 2013, Tomita won a $30 million judgement after a district court jury found that the Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming system infringed Tomita’s patent for capturing and displaying 3D images without the need for special glasses.


Having worked on research in the area of 3D imaging, I can say with certainty it's all about software (except the acquisition part/s). Why should Nintendo not challenge the patents on this basis?

The case that received a lot more media attention, however, is iLife Technologies Inc. v Nintendo. Gaming sites [1, 2], British news sites, and even Joe Mullin in the US, have covered it.

Welcome to Texas, Nintendo. That's where patent litigation/lawsuits are big (legal) 'business'. A jury in Texas (home of patent trolls) decided in favour of a software patent for "detecting if a person has fallen down." As a gaming site put it:

After suing Nintendo over the motion-sensing accelerometers used for Wii Remotes, iLife has been awarded $10 million by a Texas Jury.

Nintendo has provided a statement explaining "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 ought to appeal and take this case as far as possible from Texas, where justice on patents has been farcical (or dubious at best).

After TC Heartland it will be easier moving lawsuits out of Texas; but then there's this new analysis regarding jurisdiction:

In determining that a Kansas court did not have personal jurisdiction over an accused patent infringer, the Federal Circuit found that the accused infringer's activities prior to the date the patent was granted were irrelevant to the question of whether the infringer had sufficient activity in Kansas such that the Kansas court had personal jurisdiction over the accused infringer. The court also found a forum selection clause in an end user license agreement accepted by the accused infringer did not apply and could not be used in the patent infringement suit to dictate the court in which the case would be heard.


Nintendo does not target Texas specifically. In fact, Texas would be pretty insignificant (fiscally) to Nintendo.

Why are disputes over software patents still being dealt with in a state where judges are "reprehensible", according to US politicians? They barely even follow the law, they just do what they believe is good for their local economy.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October