Nintendo

Nintendo escapes Wii MotionPlus patent lawsuit

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Nintendo can scratch one lawsuit off of its docket.

Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court in Seattle dismissed a lawsuit that claimed Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus accessory infringed upon a Triton Tech patent. Judge Richard A. Jones dropped the case after hearing and rejecting Triton’s arguments.

“We feel vindicated by the court’s ruling,” Nintendo deputy general counsel Richard Medway said in a statement. “Nintendo’s track record demonstrates that we vigorously defend patent lawsuits, like the Triton lawsuit, when we believe that we have not infringed another party’s patent. Consumers respect Nintendo because we develop unique and innovative products and because we respect the intellectual property rights of others.”

Triton Tech believed that the Wii MotionPlus accessory, which added precise motion sensors to Wii’s remote, violated its patent on a “computer apparatus input device for three-dimensional information.” The company filed its complaint in 2010 in Texas.

Nintendo won a request to transfer the case to Seattle, which is near its Redmond headquarters.