"a regular-looking game controller with analogue pressure sensors"

That's anything with an analogue joystick then? Only in America...

Surely Sony and Microsoft can also be sued...? The PS3 has pressure sensitive buttons all over the thing!

The fact that he decided to exclude the fact that Microsoft was also sued as part of the same patent infringement.

Way to go james, make the entire Register journos look like a bunch of biased buffoons..

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/05/12/daily26.html?jst=b_ln_hl

"a patent for a regular-looking game controller with analogue pressure sensors."

You mean .. with .. buttons?

McCreevy's at it again, he's trying to reduce the innovation test needed to determine if a patent represents a new invention and widening patents to software and business processes. Bringing patent trolling to EU.

Specifically, he's trying to slot in ' AS A WHOLE' to the patent wording.

So they can make ever more bullshit inventions simply by adding extra clauses until they find something that hasn't been patented.You invent a cold fusion, a patent troll patents 'cold fusion used to power houses' and blocks your invention for use in powering houses.

Then there's the computer trick, you can't patent software, you can't patent business processes or pure maths or discoveries.... but with the new McCreevy text you can just tack on something else to make it patentable.

I patent x+1 used in a ballot counting machine....

I patent handshake transactions as used in the financial industry....

So Symbian recently patented late loading of dll's thereby undermining the whole computer industry with every PC late loading their device drivers that way. (Which idiot didn't know we late load dlls for every driver?)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/19/patents_software_online/

If they are found to not be able to patent software, they'll simply tack on 'late loading dlls in a phone' and 'late loading dlls in a pc', ... to make it patentable again.

In typical McCreevy style, he's agreed this change in a treating with the USA, bypassing the EU law making process and taking his orders direct from Washington.

Maybe it's just the article that's vague but wouldn't every controller ever made fall into those patent categories? How come this company isn't suing MS, SONY, Gravis, Logitech, etc?

Paris? She likes stick shaped things and has pressure sensors too...

Being a family type organisation, I know they don't want the bad press but is $20M really going to cause Nintendo any problems?

They should get thrown out of court unless they can prove that they actually developed and retailed a competing product. The lawsuit should represent losses that they can prove (or even explain) that they have incurred. Otherwise it's just too easy to patent squat, and simply register patents for whatever captures the imagination and in the vaguest terms possible, for a product that you've no chance or intention of ever building.

I might just go an register a patent for a "thing" that "does stuff".

.... have a stupid patent system. how its it right people can just patent anything. i know im going to patent a mecanical device. if anything is ever made that moves and starts selling i will sue! idiots!

I had read elsewhere that the ruling was over the Wavebird controller for the GameCube.

IIRC a lot of patent infringement cases are brought before Texan courts which have shown a greater tendency to side with the plaintiff.

Anyone able to confirm this or shall I put it down to false recollection under the influence of eau de meths?

An|d th|e scree|n look|ed like this.

So| we |exchan|ged it,| but guess

wh|at? |The rep|lacem|ent Wii has

th|e sa|me vide|o GPU| fault. Sigh,

it'|s rea|lly anno|ying t|o have to

send th|e secon|d unit back...

of Sony fanboism

and the fatty sweat he generates from frantically responding to every post on the internet that could possibly say something bad about sony

waaaaaah

Only the Nintendo suit has been completed; there is nothing to report in the Microsoft case yet.

But then, giving that Mark considers it to be Xbox fanboyism for there to be a single story on the entire Register site that doesn't desperately scramble to shoehorn a mention of the RROD in, what do you expect. Seek professional help, Mark; it's not funny any more.

So by "analogue pressure sensors" it seems it's the analogue triggers that are the target of this suit. I'd have thought the neGcon controller that Namco made for the PS1 would have qualified as prior art (since Anascape's patents are dated from '97 onwards and the neGcon is from around the PS1's launch in '94).

More can be found on the neGcon here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negcon

As far as I know only the playstation and controllers have analogue buttons (triggers in the xbox case). The gamecube controller had abxy (or whatever) that were purely digital, they had two clicks in the shoulder buttons, but I think they're digital, they only have 2 sensitivities.

"At least Nintendo’s executives can use the boxing game on Wii Sports to vent some of their money-loss rage."

who on earth thought of this line? this is 'journalism' straight out of the The Sun!