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James Scott · Apr 25, 2016

From ZhugeEX

Remember this article a couple of years back where Nintendo had to pay royalties over 3DS patent infringement-
Nikkei seems to be reporting that the decision has been overturned and Nintendo actually won the case.

Based on this case from 2014 where they had to pay royalties for every 3DS sold for seemingly infringing on some patents
Report confirmed by Chris Reeds:

Nikkei seems to be reporting that the decision has been overturned and Nintendo actually won the case

yep, that’s correct. something like ‘the (American) court ruled that it did not infringe on the patent’

https://twitter.com/ccharlesreed/status/724667534956318721

Nintendo's statment:

Nintendo’s comment to Nikkei: ’this ruling affirms our original assertion, and is an appropriate decision’

https://twitter.com/ccharlesreed/status/724671612671258624

L Thammy · Apr 25, 2016

Huh, wasn't expecting that. That doesn't affect royalties already paid, right?

Mihael Mello Keehl · Apr 25, 2016

What other new NEWS do you have today and tomorrow NIKKEI?

Hero of Legend · Apr 25, 2016

Here's his tweets:

Remember this article a couple of years back where Nintendo had to pay royalties over 3DS patent infringement-

Nikkei seems to be reporting that the decision has been overturned and Nintendo actually won the case.

And Chris Reed confirmed it:

Nikkei seems to be reporting that the decision has been overturned and Nintendo actually won the case.

https://twitter.com/ccharlesreed/status/724667534956318721

Frodo · Apr 25, 2016

Nintendo is doome-- oh wait...!

James Scott · Apr 25, 2016

L Thammy said:
Huh, wasn't expecting that. That doesn't affect royalties already paid, right?

Not sure, I'd hope they get what they paid back.

Hero of Legend said:
Here's his tweets:

And Chris Reed confirmed it:

https://twitter.com/ccharlesreed/status/724667534956318721

added to the OP

Nostremitus · Apr 25, 2016

Yeah, curious if they are owed back what they paid out.

KojiKnight · Apr 25, 2016

So.... does Nintendo get that money back now? How does that work? I imagine it had to have been a pretty penny with dozens of millions of 3DS sold.

Cert.in.Death · Apr 25, 2016

I dunno if it's selective news articles, but Nintendo appears to have some damn good patent attorneys on staff and under retainer because they rarely lose these cases. Maybe they don't lose in court, anyway, but those guys/gals obviously ain't working for free.

Cosmo Clock 21 · Apr 25, 2016

This is the the guy who alleged that Nintendo stole his glasses-free 3D idea after he pitched it to him, right?

GoldenEye 007 · Apr 25, 2016

If this case was in an active appeal the whole time, I doubt Nintendo paid anything out to the other party. At most, there probably would have been a court appointed Trust where payments were made or a certain lump sum deposit made pending the final outcome.

kuroneko0509 · Apr 25, 2016

Cosmo Clock 21 said:
This is the the guy who alleged that Nintendo stole his glasses-free 3D idea after he pitched it to him, right?

ayup

James Scott · Apr 25, 2016

The court document of the case should be available tomorrow so we can maybe get details by then https://twitter.com/ccharlesreed/status/724672742147018752

Plinko · Apr 25, 2016

Cosmo Clock 21 said:
This is the the guy who alleged that Nintendo stole his glasses-free 3D idea after he pitched it to him, right?

"I could have been a millionaire! I could have been a fragrance millionaire!"

Oersted · Apr 25, 2016

James Scott said:
The court document of the case should be available tomorrow so we can maybe get details by then https://twitter.com/ccharlesreed/status/724672742147018752

Thanks. Hopefully some good reasoning

udivision · Apr 25, 2016

James Scott said:
The court document of the case should be available tomorrow so we can maybe get details by then https://twitter.com/ccharlesreed/status/724672742147018752

Something like the NX handheld or "future devices" using the same technology or wouldn't come up, would it? That would make it more important to have this case resolved... but I figure they could just be vague about it.

Neoxon · Apr 25, 2016

That's good to hear. Nintendo must have some solid-ass lawyers under their employ.

SenorArdilla · Apr 25, 2016

Cosmo Clock 21 said:
This is the the guy who alleged that Nintendo stole his glasses-free 3D idea after he pitched it to him, right?

Does he have to pay Nintendo back then?

madstarr12 · Apr 25, 2016

Well that was interesting

still doomed.

Occam · Apr 25, 2016

There were lots of glasses-free 3D displays long before 3DS, for instance Fraunhofer Institute demonstrated their free2c 3D displays as early as 2004.
Fuji Finepix 3D W1 (3D camera) had an auto-stereoscopic display in 2009, as did JVC's GS-TD1 3D camcorder from early 2011.

The idea of using a parallax barrier to display 3D is over 100 years old.

This patent trolling nonsense needs to stop.

FyreWulff · Apr 25, 2016

From what I remember reading this case, the patent in question and how the 3DS actually did 3D had damn near no relation to each other. Seemed like the suer got lucky with a judge the first time around.

Menitta · Apr 25, 2016

Plinko said:
"I could have been a millionaire! I could have been a fragrance millionaire!"

I love this post so much.

Neoxon said:
That's good to hear. Nintendo must have some solid-ass lawyers under their employ.

Nightbird · Apr 25, 2016

Neoxon said:
That's good to hear. Nintendo must have some solid-ass lawyers under their employ.

You call them lawyers, we call them ninjas.

vinnygambini · Apr 25, 2016

SenorArdilla said:
Does he have to pay Nintendo back then?

No, money was never exchanged. Nintendo appealed the case; however, money was set aside in case the appeal was not successful.

Edit: I believe the amount was $30M.

Neoxon · Apr 25, 2016

ShadyPenguin said:
You call them lawyers, we call them ninjas.

Shhhhh, we don't speak of their night job.

Pancakes R Us · Apr 25, 2016

Nintendo's response:

Please understand and give us our monies back.

Nightbird · Apr 25, 2016

Neoxon said:
Shhhhh, we don't speak of their night job.

Oh shit, you are ri-

Reversed · Apr 25, 2016

ShadyPenguin said:
You call them lawyers, we call them ninjas.

Kimishima's Nintendo bringing back its ruthless roots.

Eclectic Jabber Monkey · Apr 25, 2016

Neoxon said:
That's good to hear. Nintendo must have some solid-ass lawyers under their employ.

They probably do have very good lawyers, but they must also do a ton of patent research to ensure they either don't infringe on existing patents or pay the patent holders they know they would be infringing on.

Nintendo's hardware team is the the best in the video game industry in my opinion. Although I don't agree with all of the hardware decisions they have made their gear always seems to work well as designed. Other than my NES having the common cartridges not making correct contact issue, I haven't had an Nintendo system or console fail on me, most of which I've bought when they have launched.

James Scott · Apr 26, 2016

Looked at the details of the case. It's 1.82% of the wholesale of all 3DS units sold.
On average each is sold at $200 so let's say $3.64.
Let's also say that by the end of the 3DS life cycle it will amount to around 60 million or at least 60 million worth of $200 3DSs.
This would amount to a whopping $218,400,000.
And the judge had also issued an additional $15.1M in damages so $233,500,000.
Admittedly in the high end of the estimates, but still pretty substantial.
If you average out the numbers to the lower end of 3DS prices, $175, it should still total at over 200 Million dollars

Neo Dark · Apr 26, 2016

Neoxon said:
That's good to hear. Nintendo must have some solid-ass lawyers under their employ.

Nintendo's had good lawyers since the beginning. Should look into their history especially the Universal vs Nintendo case. At the time, the American branch was rather new and Universal was so confident they were going to get their way that they went ahead and acted like they already won. You know, now that I think about it, it's kind of ironic seeing Nintendo licensing their properties to be used for a theme park after all this.

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Nikkei: Nintendo patent infringment royalties case has been overturned

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