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News: Nintendo sued over Wii.... again.

Nintendo faces another lawsuit over various aspects of its Nintendo Wii video game console. This time from Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc., a Maryland-based startup, that designs, develops and sells an interactive media system called HoME, which uses a combination of graphical, zooming and interface software for TV and motion control technology called Freespace.

In a strategic move, Hillcrest filed suit both in the U.S. District Court of Maryland, as well as with the International Trade Commission. The patents at issue are 7,139,983; 7,158,118; 7,262,760; and 7,414,611. According to Law360, the patents relate to the following technology:

"The company's U.S. Patent Numbers 7,158,118; 7,262,760; and 7,414,611 cover a technology that is often used on television sets and allows users to access several forms of digital content, such as digital photographs, Internet Web sites and games, according to Hillcrest. The software typically uses a main menu that prompts users to choose which program they wish to use.

U.S. Patent Number 7,139,983, meanwhile, protects technology for a hand-held, three-dimensional pointing device that, unlike a two-dimensional device such as a computer mouse, allows the user to translate or rotate the pointing tool in space, instead of detecting movement relative to a flat surface."

The district court's docket number is 8:08-cv-02188. We'll add this case to our tracking list and keep you posted of new developments.

Full post as published by Patent Arcade on August 21, 2008 (boomark / email).