Engineer's $30m windfall from Nintendo 3DS patent spat SLASHED by beak A US judge has halved a $30.2m payout awarded to an inventor by a jury in a patent infringement trial involving Nintendo's 3DS console. The panel of peers in New York handed ex-Sony engineer Seijiro Tomita the multimillion-dollar damages after finding that Ninty had infringed his patented 3D display technology - which allows …
Patents have always been granted for simple ideas. I've got a 19th century folding ironing board and the patent on it is for the hook on the leg that latches over the metal pin below the axle in the legs.
People talk about prior art, but prior art to the USPTO is that which has been previously filed with the patent office, not that which is extant in the world at large. For real world use to be considered against a filing it has to meet insanely difficult qualifications for commonality: Like a hat or something. When doorknobs came along in the 19th century they were nearly all patented, but people had been using knobs on an axle with a string tied to the catch for ages.
"...so you take the lenticular overlays that have been on posters and DVD/video cases for decades, stick it on a screen, and it's patent-worthy?"
You might still want to look at that as it's not how the 3DS works: It uses parallax barrier technology invented here in the UK and developed by Sharp. Incidentally, the idea has been around a bit longer than the ex-Sony chap was independent. I was involved briefly back in 2001 and I believe there was a DoCoMo phone with that sort of display and a stereo camera available in the early 2000s.
What I don't get is how this works. It is based on the principle that someone could infringe the patent with a game.
(That would be like suing Microsoft because someone could make a PC Program that infringed a patent).
Don't think Nintendo are making that much money outside Japan either.
Jury awards are regularly knocked downwards on appeal, this isn't a special case. Unless reckless death, dismemberment or permanent harm occurres US laws will rework jury awards based on the financial disposition of the at fault party. You generally aren't allowed to sue a company out of business or cause financial ruin or cause financial hardship that results in significant loss of employee jobs unless one of the terrible things above happened or very large numbers of people were harmed.
The financial impact on the at fault party is why frivolous or iffy suits are generally aimed at super valuable companies or people, the appeals judge is likely to still offer a substantial award where with a poor company or individual the judge may very well toss the case out completely and you end up with nothing.
There should be one thing that should be looked at; who asked for a jury trial. if it is Nintendo, then their request for an appeal should be denied for any reason relating to the amount of damages. They wanted a jury, they should be required to live with the monetary damages awarded. if the plaintiff requested a jury, then an appeal for the awarded damages should be allowed.
The thing is Apple gets to ignore any patent rulings. By the presidents say so.
(They like to think of Apple as American even when they are Irish).
The US also ignores the UN or WTO when it suits it. (Antigua).
Only China and Russia pretty much ignore the US.
I bet the Occulus Rift gets hammered by patent trolls.
Nintendo are not really that bad when it comes to patents either.
(If they had very broadly patented the Analog stick for example and said nobody else could use it. Or the Wiimote was blatently cloned by Sony in a similar manner).
They have never done any of that type of junk. (But this sort of thing may well make them start becoming like that).
Maybe they didn't have patents on the analog stick because they had existed for donkeys years in both home computing and industrial settings. They probably brought the X-Y pot assembly as a stock park.
Also, nintendo basically invented and pioneered region locking, so any IP brownie points they get for not patenting the shit out of everything are moot as far as I'm concerned.
So..every 3DS produced violates the mentioned patent, but since not every game makes use of the patent infringing component the judge reduced the damages awarded. I don't see the logic there, how does the number of games matter when it's the hardware and/or firmware that is in violation?
Okay, I'll bite.
There are two matters to be decided. One is whether or not the 3DS infringes Tomita's patent. The first court said it does. This hasn't changed, and wasn't changed by the appeal verdict.
The second ruling is more tricky: "how much, in monetary terms, has Mr Tomita lost in licence fees as a result of this infringement?". The first court said $30 million. This is what was disputed.
Tomita's lawyers had based their calculations of damages on a claim that without Tomita's 3D system, the 3DS could not have been a success. There are two claims here. 1. "The 3DS isn't viable without 3D", but also the impled second claim: 2. "the 3DS system is a successful product".
On 1, many of the system's titles don't use 3D so it doesn't hold that without 3D there would be no market for games on the system. But more imprortantly, the second assertion, that 3DS was a successful product, is not true - it's a loss-making system.
The appeal jude agreed with Nintendo's appeal, but as the original infringement still happened, decided to award a lower amount, rather than overturning the original verdict.
So, there you go. It's still a violation of the original patent (but Nintendo will be granted a licence once settlement is made), but the compensation due to Tomita for this crime isn't as high as his lawyers made out.
> But more imprortantly, the second assertion, that 3DS was a successful product,
> is not true - it's a loss-making system.
Nintendo are in the black this year partly due to 3DS sales. They don't make their money on selling the console, but on a licence fee for each game sold. It's the same basic model as is used for inkjet cartridges.
3DS sales were much lower than anticipated shortly after launch but picked up enormously when the price of the console was dropped.
When the 3DS was first introduced, the 3D feature was publicised VERY heavily, as a core selling point of the system. It's not pushed anywhere nearly as much now due to the downsides (some people get a headache from the effect, and young children can't handle it very well.)
I'm not sure if it's reasonable to say "we ripped off your patent, and sold it as a major feature, but we shouldn't have to pay you as much because it turned out it wasn't as big a selling point as we had hoped."
That's a crap argument and any jurist making it should have their law license summarily suspended for a minimum of 3 years. Any jurist approving it should have their law license summarily suspended for life.
The correct calculation is: how much per device should it cost? If I license an MS codec for a phone it doesn't matter whether or not every user makes use of that codec or not, I still owe the license fee. If you didn't negotiate the fee up front, you take your chances on how much that's going to hurt your company. That puts a bit more oomph in making sure companies don't ignore patent laws until they are taken to court.
Yes, yes. I know you're arguing law not what ought to happen. But law always ought to be about what ought to happen without fungible excuses like how profitable a certain division of the company is.
The Japanese engineer owns the American patent. The Japanese company sells the game to Americans which is where the patent is held. It logically follows the suit should be in an American court.
And since both parties are 'dem fereingers, it's going to be the closest thing to an honest decision you can get.
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