The Shrine

It was inevitable

http://wii.ign.com/articles/750/750001p1.html

I'd like to see how this one plays out. It's more than just the fact that it points at the screen and voila, it's a remote. It's how it achieves that pointing that's the difference. The Japanese are known for being navel gazers so I'd like to see just how close their remote is to a US patent. Knowing Nintendo's superiority complex, I doubt they even knew this existed.

But if they did...

That's actually quite interesting. Nintendo filed all the necessary patents for the Wii controller, some dating back to the N64 days. I think I posted them here earlier in the year sometime when it was still called the Revolution. Two scenarios will take place, either the company with the later patent will have it nullified (which is typical in situations like this), or they will decide that the patent is not being infringed upon due to wording. Though I think due to the generality of it (since Nintendo's, as I remember it, was much more specific than this, it was specifically for video game devices or something along those lines) that it won't effect the Wii in light of Nintendo's own patents.

Software/electrical engineering patent law needs a rewrite. Copyrights are okay, but most software patents are really retarded.