It’s a never ending cycle: new product comes out; people get to see how it works. People buy the product and make it successful, and not a moment too soon, a lawsuit on whatever kind of infringement comes out of the blue to beat up on the company’s lawyers from here to six ways from Sunday.

                                            An eight-year old video showing remarkably similar dynamics to Nintendo's Wii.

Favorite targets include Apple of course; their products are sublime (and obvious once the design element is put aside) to encourage literally hundreds of responses from lawsuit hopefuls (hopeful of getting some payoff – whether opportunistically or in truth). Some others are Microsoft, Sony, and Intel. The one on the hot seat now though is none other than our favorite game console maker: Nintendo – over their hit product Wii, specifically the Wii Remote or “Wiimote” that employs sensors for detecting three-dimensional movement.

A former Midway (the game company) employee is claiming that the technology behind the Wii’s success was something that was developed by him nearly 10 years ago using some hacked – together controllers and was used to control movement on the Ready to Rumble Boxing  game released for the Dreamcast in the same time frame. As of this moment, all that is being claimed is that he holds the patents to the technology involved, but no actual lawsuit has been filed – which is kind of admirable, or kind of suspicious, depending on the amount of cynicism you usually carry around with you.

                                             Nintendo's version, of course, is wireless.

On the one hand, the technology behind the Wii’s remote is not so groundbreaking as to relegate it to something coming out of a pure research & development office – accelerometers and pitch and yaw sensors have been around for the longest time – it is perfectly believable that this implementation of existing technology may have been made long before. At the same time, there have been many instances where “credit where credit is due” was ignored totally, with blatant capitalism trampling any lingering protest over ownership of one patent or the other.

                                             However it came about, this is technology for fun.

We do not yet know what the truth is in this case, although the “evidence” is quite convincing in support for the former employee. But considering the sequence of events that supposedly led to the Wii’s control scheme, plus the number of improvements made by Nintendo engineers over and above the original patent, even the employee’s latest patent (year 2000) may not be relevant enough for him to be able to demand compensation.

                                             This is the modded "Wii Laptop". Maybe Ninendo will sue in turn.

Then again, if the employee won, how much will Nintendo settle for to resolve the matter? Most probably not more than a day’s profit lost. Perhaps not even that. I’m just glad the Wii is already out and about for our enjoyment. Now somebody has to file a lawsuit on copyright infringement for a “restraining strap” – the one on the Wii certainly bears improving.