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

After a conversation with our own Dan Landis, who reported just a few minutes ago that Marky Mark Walberg injured himself while playing with his Wii, I simply had to take the opportunity to “wii-examine” the statement Mark made not even two weeks ago.

A reporter for People Magazine asked the underwear model, turned rapper, turned actor, if he had played the Max Payne video game, to which he responded:

“I got more responsibility now than I’ve ever had with the kids and everything else. I don’t want to be spending 14 hours on the videogame and then eight hours on the set. It’s not going to work out.”

So, he doesn’t have time to play a video game that may also constitute as research for a role he is about to undertake, but he has the time to play with the Nintendo Wii. If ever you needed proof that the Wii is not considered a real gaming system by some of the people who own it, this may be it.

I personally have nothing against the Wii, but after reporting on a NYC Fitness center charging $110 an hour to play Wii Fit, and now an actor who claims he can’t play video games because of his addictive personality hurting his wrist in a Wii Remote accident, it’s clear to me that the Wii is a phenomenon — one that will likely continue with or without the support of the hardcore gamer.

Merry Christmas, Nintendo! For the second year in a row, the Nintendo Wii is one of the must-have holiday items. And although I’m completely aware of the console’s success, I was still pleasantly surprised to see just how well the company was doing on Amazon.

Amazon’s videogames best sellers list goes as follows:

1. Nintendo Wii Console
2. Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii
3. Wii Remote Controller
4. Wii Nunchuk Controller
5. Crackdown for Xbox 360
6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Xbox 360
7. Wii Points Card
8. Wii Play with Wii Remote
9. Wii Zapper with Link’s Crossbow Training
10. Wii Charge Station

The thought of all those little children running amok with their Wii Zappers blasting just warms my cold heart. The list changes hourly, and while the positions have been shifting somewhat, the same items have been there for several hours.

As a Nintendo fanboy, I’m pretty ecstatic. It’s also nice to see Call of Duty 4 doing so well, because I personally believe it’s the best game of the year. As for Crackdown? That seems out of the blue, but I think I remember Amazon having it on sale for $19.99 a little while back, which would explain its presence.