Nintendo Loses $10M Lawsuit Over Wii Remote Patent

Nintendo recently lost a lawsuit that was filed against the company that said Nintendo infringed on patents when creating the Wii, Wii U, and the consoles' controllers.

A tech company called iLife filed the lawsuit against the gaming company back in 2013 where it cited several examples of infringement against patents that iLife owned. According to the company that filed the lawsuit in the Texas District Court, Nintendo infringed on motion-sensing technology that iLife had patents on when Nintendo designed the Wii Remote controllers.

While iLife isn't exactly in the business of gaming like Nintendo is, the company says that their technology has multiple potential functions, one of which was supposedly seen in the Wii Remotes. The motion-sense tech from iLife is typically used to monitor infants and elderly individuals, but iLife claims that the infringement by Nintendo allowed for the creation of the Wii's controllers.

After losing the lawsuit that was one of several legal actions iLife took against Nintendo around 4 years ago, Nintendo is being ordered to pay iLife a whopping $10.1 million in damages. The sum that Nintendo's being ordered to give iLife is way less than the tech company was originally asking for when they sued for damages that totaled as much as $144 million, but even with the much lower payout, Nintendo still isn't done with the legal proceedings. Nintendo plans to challenge the lawsuit by appealing the decision soon.

"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 said in a statement provided to Glixel. "The jury awarded iLife $10 million in damages. Nintendo disagrees with the decision, as Nintendo does not infringe iLife's patent and the patent is invalid. Nintendo looks forward to raising those issues with the district court and with the court of appeals."

The lawsuit seeks payment for 36 million Wii systems that were sold before the lawsuit was filed, a massive number of sales that warrants the high damages payout. More news is expected to come in the future as Nintendo continues their appeal.