As quite a few of you know, Nintendo has received a bit of problems with their 3DS console in regards to patents. Now a federal court has ordered Nintendo to pay up $30 million in damages to Tomita Technologies after it found the new handheld infringing a patent filed in 2003 by Sejiro Tomita. The reason? In 2003, Mr Tomita was one of the people showing their tech to big N for possible uses in new consoles.
In arguments heard in a federal court last month, Tomita presented evidence that he had met with several Nintendo R&D engineers in 2003 to show off a prototype of his technology. Nintendo argued that Tomita was one of many potential vendors that it met with and that the patent was overly vague in a number of ways. The judge disagreed, noting in his decision numerous similarities between the 3DS' stereoscopic display and the one described in Tomita's patent.
Source via ArsTechnica
Personally I'm a bit surprised. Not sure how this will proceed in future court sessions, but prototypes are indeed a bit of a gray area in regards to future uses. Especially in the tech industry with fast paced changes