Nintendo just keeps getting tapped with patent troubles, with its highly successful Wii now the target of a patent lawsuit from Hillcrest Labs.

Hillcrest claims that its patent for “a handheld three-dimensional pointing device” and a vague description of a “navigation interface display system that graphically organizes content for display on a television” apparently predates Nintendo’s Wiimote.

On Wednesday, Maryland-based Hillcrest Labs announced that it has filed a patent infringement with the U.S. International Trade Commission, as well as another patent infringement suit in a U.S. District Court in Maryland regarding Nintendo’s Wiimote.

Hillcrest Labs does have a product based on this technology, called The Loop remote (pictured above), based on what the company calls “Freespace” motion control technology. It seems clear that The Loop remote is much different from the Wiimote, and its hard to believe that something so vague as “a 3D pointing device” could actually best Nintendo in a court of law.

Hillcrest has requested Nintendo stop shipping Wiis to the U.S. and reward Hillcrest with unspecified monetary damages. Oh, that should be easy, right Nintendo?

This is just the latest patent infringement suit that Nintendo has been hit with. Just this past July, a federal court in Texas found three Nintendo controllers—the Wii Classic controller, the WaveBird controller and the Gamecube controller—in violation of patents held by Texas-based Anascape. Nintendo has appealed the decision.

Source: news.cnet.com

Tags: Hillcrest Labs, lawsuit, Nintendo, Patent Infringement, The Loop remote, Wii-Remote, Wiimote

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