Ilife Technologies was infringed upon over Nintendo's wiimote accelerometer technology, awarded $10m

[sansnumen]

man you americanas law system sux

How so? The courts merely enforce the patent infringement laws as written by Congress. How many years are Australian patents valid for?

 

[FAST6191]

I should add that "just medical" is more of a defence than you might think. It says it detects falls which is great -- complications due to falls/broken hips are a leading killer of old people. As such people will pay a lot more than you will pay for your game controller for the device. As such a common business/electronics routine is to tap the high value markets first and then branch out once you are in a better financial position.
Still have not actually looked at the patent(s) in question though.

How so? The courts merely enforce the patent infringement laws as written by Congress. How many years are Australian patents valid for?

Said laws, and the interpretations/case law, surrounding it are usually what sucks.

Part of patents is prior art, that being if someone has done something before that works like your patent (limited exception if it was you/your company and within a certain time limit, and certain other defences like the UK Gillette Defence) it does not count. In most of the rest of the world this is serious business and the examiners will look high and low for this sort of thing, in the US they mainly search existing patents within their remit.
Similarly you have obviousness. This is more enforced than prior art but still not good*. The idea is "if something is obvious to a practitioner of the art" you can't get a patent on it.
To trash a US patent you often have to take on every claim within it, elsewhere you can take out the main claims and any based upon it go with it, and you can also take out just the claims that worry your tech.
Case law has seen that the US can patent DNA strands. This one gets tricky as I can see a path for someone to spend ages narrowing down a sequence responsible for something and thus needing some protection but the way it plays out here, to say nothing of the idea of patenting parts of the human body, needs work.
I believe said case law also allowed (or was it vice versa?) for software to be patented. In the rest of the world, save Japan, software is considered maths and thus completely unpatentable. That it exists there is considered pretty egregious.
Less problematic (I do truly find the DNA and software thing to be horribly distasteful) but still an issue for many is the existence of business method patents.
Methods of playing games may receive patents which much of the rest of the world takes issue with.
The supreme court has since more or less put a stop to the Eastern District of Texas thing but it went on for an awfully long time. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-go-texas-its-not-bbq https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/supreme-court-ends-texas-grip-patent-cases

*I am mostly UK patent law and intellectual property but have done some stuff with US companies. To secure a round of funding a patent was asked for. It was a nice idea and could have worked well but I thought nothing about it could be patented, they managed it though.

Suffice it to say though the US system of patents is not one held in high regard anywhere in the world, and causes much consternation when people want to do business inside the US from outside and in many cases within too. If you ever wondered why US cars and mobile phones lagged behind the world for so long then yeah.

Also as you asked fairly standard durations for commonwealth countries and similar to the US (about 20 years depending upon a few factors). Term/duration is a non issue for most though.
http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/5-domestic-legal-framework/duration-patent-protection
https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/understanding-patents/types-patents
The innovation patent thing is an interesting one and I am less versed in as far as how it plays out locally. The equivalents elsewhere (it comes under the term utility model) means the concept is fairly popular worldwide http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/ip_business/utility_models/where.htm

 

[sansnumen]

I should add that "just medical" is more of a defence than you might think. It says it detects falls which is great -- complications due to falls/broken hips are a leading killer of old people. As such people will pay a lot more than you will pay for your game controller for the device. As such a common business/electronics routine is to tap the high value markets first and then branch out once you are in a better financial position.
Still have not actually looked at the patent(s) in question though.


Said laws, and the interpretations/case law, surrounding it are usually what sucks.

Part of patents is prior art, that being if someone has done something before that works like your patent (limited exception if it was you/your company and within a certain time limit, and certain other defences like the UK Gillette Defence) it does not count. In most of the rest of the world this is serious business and the examiners will look high and low for this sort of thing, in the US they mainly search existing patents within their remit.
Similarly you have obviousness. This is more enforced than prior art but still not good*. The idea is "if something is obvious to a practitioner of the art" you can't get a patent on it.
To trash a US patent you often have to take on every claim within it, elsewhere you can take out the main claims and any based upon it go with it, and you can also take out just the claims that worry your tech.
Case law has seen that the US can patent DNA strands. This one gets tricky as I can see a path for someone to spend ages narrowing down a sequence responsible for something and thus needing some protection but the way it plays out here, to say nothing of the idea of patenting parts of the human body, needs work.
I believe said case law also allowed (or was it vice versa?) for software to be patented. In the rest of the world, save Japan, software is considered maths and thus completely unpatentable. That it exists there is considered pretty egregious.
Less problematic (I do truly find the DNA and software thing to be horribly distasteful) but still an issue for many is the existence of business method patents.
Methods of playing games may receive patents which much of the rest of the world takes issue with.
The supreme court has since more or less put a stop to the Eastern District of Texas thing but it went on for an awfully long time. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-go-texas-its-not-bbq https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/supreme-court-ends-texas-grip-patent-cases

*I am mostly UK patent law and intellectual property but have done some stuff with US companies. To secure a round of funding a patent was asked for. It was a nice idea and could have worked well but I thought nothing about it could be patented, they managed it though.

Suffice it to say though the US system of patents is not one held in high regard anywhere in the world, and causes much consternation when people want to do business inside the US from outside and in many cases within too. If you ever wondered why US cars and mobile phones lagged behind the world for so long then yeah.

Also as you asked fairly standard durations for commonwealth countries and similar to the US (about 20 years depending upon a few factors). Term/duration is a non issue for most though.
http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/5-domestic-legal-framework/duration-patent-protection
https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/understanding-patents/types-patents
The innovation patent thing is an interesting one and I am less versed in as far as how it plays out locally. The equivalents elsewhere (it comes under the term utility model) means the concept is fairly popular worldwide http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/ip_business/utility_models/where.htm

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. The problem I have with US patent law in general is that it has no foresight built into the process. Any problems that need fixing need court review; the Patent Office as you said just superficially scans previous patents for conflicts. Prior art claims can nullify US patents, but those claims have to be adjudicated in Federal Court. Congress can easily pass a new law to overturn the courts, but refuses to do so.

As to DNA patents, the Supreme Court set a precedent stating that DNA sequences isolated from nature cannot be patented. The Court, however, did not address "synthetic" DNA, or cDNA, completely. The Court left the door open to patents on that front. It is troubling that the Court left cDNA an open question.

https://journals.law.stanford.edu/s...-us-supreme-court-decision-does-myriad-matter

 

[Taleweaver]

Patents in general are awful and anti-free market.

Nintendo MAY have used their tech but Nintendo found a creative way to use it.

I strongly disagree with the first part, but partially with the second part.


The main issue is that patents are a good thing in theory. If I invent something, a patent can make sure that no large company simply steals my idea and leaves me with all the cost of research and zero income because competing with a multinational is like a child with a basketball going up against an NBA team.

Unless I'm mistaken, that judge didn't simply sat on his ass for four years before saying "objection granted" but had it thoroughly examined if nintendo's used technology did, in fact, originate from Ilife (not sure if that's a double l or a capital i followed by an l, btw) (that's ilife, according to the source). The verdict is most likely based on the result of that, so I wouldn't go around suggesting that this claim is unfounded for no reason unless you've got some serious sources to back it up.

However, as I said earlier: a patent should protect against a company stealing the idea. Ilife had anything but plans for a motion controlled game console. They had sensors "related to detecting if a person has fallen down". That's pretty broad as an idea (it almost sounds like patenting the use of the word "the"). Of course the wiimote sometimes does that (wario ware: smooth moves had a couple microgames where you had to duck). Heck...without a doubt, all current virtual reality devices have something similar. It's that sort of thing that makes this whole case interesting.

 

[nero99]

It's like you people think 10mil will even put a dent in Nintendos bank account.

 

[KingVamp]

It's like you people think 10mil will even put a dent in Nintendos bank account.

That's not the point. The point is that it is an unfair patent claim.

 

[dimmidice]

That's not the point. The point is that it is an unfair patent claim.

The judge clearly disagreed.

 

[Deleted User]

And there goes nintendos stability money.