Nintendo wins lawsuit against bogus patent for police sketches
There have been numerous games as of late that require you to build the face and body of your character. Mass Effect, WWE, NBA 2K17, etc., have all given you the chance to make your character unique.
Nintendo, however, was sued for this in 2011 by RecogniCorp. Something as simple as "create your person" became a court case. RecogniCorp claimed that Nintendo's avatar creating system was too close a copy to their own for police sketches. The court decided this past Friday that RecogniCorp's patent should never have been granted in the first place and thus shut down the lawsuit completely.
Police Sketch Patent Ruled Unpatentable
REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- On April 28, a federal appeals court confirmed that the patent asserted against Nintendo by RecogniCorp should never have been granted. The court’s order resolves a patent infringement lawsuit originally filed against Nintendo in 2011, in which RecogniCorp, LLC claimed that Nintendo’s Mii characters employed the same techniques described in the patent for making police sketches of suspects.
“We are very pleased with the court’s decision,” said Ajay Singh, Nintendo of America’s Director of Litigation and Compliance. “The decision marks another case in which Nintendo’s unique ideas overcame unjustified threats of patent infringement. Nintendo has a long history of developing innovative products and we will continue to vigorously defend all our products from meritless patent lawsuits.”
About Nintendo: The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Nintendo Switch™ system and the Nintendo 3DS™ family of portable systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System™, Nintendo has sold more than 4.4 billion video games and more than 700 million hardware units globally, including Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, as well as the Game Boy™, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS™ family of systems, Super NES™, Nintendo 64™, Nintendo GameCube™, Wii™ and Wii U™ systems. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names, such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Zelda and Pokémon. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Americas. For more information about Nintendo, please visit the company’s website at http://www.nintendo.com.
