Re: Partial Repayment.
Not so fast.
Everyone hates patent trolls, and in many cases rightly so. However, as this comment elsewhere points out, it's not so clear cut:-
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4657669&cid=45926399
"IA labs made actual products similar to wii-fit and met with Nintendo to discuss making Wii accessories using their technology at about the time the 3DS was to be released. IA then found out that Nintendo made the accessories themselves, apparently "stealing the ideas" that IA presented to them. So that's not what we'd normally call a patent troll. It turns out that Nintendo had been developing the products before meeting with IA, and the court ruled that Nintendo didn't infringe the IA patents, so IA lost."
In short, it appears to be a patent dispute, but while Nintendo's win *may* have been right, that doesn't automatically mean the losing party was "trolling".
It's open to question whether Nintendo are trying to make themselves look good by painting the company they defeated as a troll. (Contrary to what the discussion above claims, Nintendo *did* themselves call them a "troll" in their press release:- http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=41125 ).
As was also mentioned, it's possible that this might be the start of a trend where companies start to exploit the legitimate dislike of patent trolls- a phenomenon that only started to be taken seriously when the industry establishment realised that it was clearly against their interests- as a smear tactic against any opponents in patent disputes.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
