Nintendo Secures Victory, Ends Patent Dispute Over Switch Controllers
Nintendo has become victorious in a lawsuit related to patent rights. Gamevice was the plaintiff in the lawsuit. The company is a video game peripheral manufacturer. The lawsuit originated in a federal court in California.
Gamevice, the plaintiff, had accused Nintendo of infringing its patent in the lawsuit. This patent in question is on the Joy-Con controllers that come with Nintendo’s Switch gaming console.
However, Richard Seeborg, a U.S. District Judge, ruled that the company’s controllers function entirely differently. Thus, the ruling stated that the controller is different from Gamevice’s patented technology. This ruling has led to the lawsuit being dismissed.
The ruling by Judge Seeborg marks Gamevice’s third legal defeat. The International Trade Commission of the United States earlier dismissed its claim of patent violations. Gamevice had actually filed two patent complaints against Nintendo. One was in 2019, and the next one came two years later, in 2021.
Nintendo introduced the Switch in 2017, and it has since become highly popular, with nearly 130 million consoles sold as of June 2023. Gamevice filed a lawsuit against Nintendo in 2018, asserting that Nintendo’s Joy-Con controllers, designed for use both attached to and detached from the Switch, infringed on Gamevice’s patents related to gaming controllers for smartphones and tablets.
In the lawsuit, Gamevice’s legal representatives looked for unspecified damage. However, Judge Seeborg rejected all remaining claims regarding two patents. According to the judgment, both devices operate differently. They lack the “confinement structures” and “input module apertures” of the patents. Nintendo and Gamevice have not delivered an official response to the court’s decision yet.
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