It was recently announced that Anascape Ltd. obtained a $21M verdict against Nintendo of America Inc. for patent infringement regarding various Nintendo gaming controllers. The lawsuit, filed on July 31, 2006 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Lufkin), alleged infringement of eleven of Anascape’s patents by Microsoft Corp. and five of Anascape’s patent by Nintendo, and sought damages, attorney’s fees, and a permanent injunction. According to the Yahoo! news article (link below), the infringing controllers included the Wii Classic, WaveBird, and Gamecube controllers, but did not include the wandlike Wii and Nuncheck controls “which mimic movements by users in games such as tennis and boxing.” Microsoft Corp. settled with Anascape on May 1st prior to the start of the trial. The first 147 documents of record in this case (from the complaint through a notice of a request for patent reexamination on October 12, 2007), are provided in the second link below via the free Justia docket website. According to the Yahoo! article, Nintendo plans to appeal this decision.

Yahoo! News Article: LINK
Initial Anascape Lawsuit Documents: LINK