Everybody is Sued: Video Gaming Legal Round-Up

Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo... or not.

Posted by Staff
Everybody is Sued: Video Gaming Legal Round-Up
SPOnG thought that it's time for a round-up of who is being sued in the world of video games today. We like to think of it as your one-stop-litigation-shop.

Let us start with who everybody thinks is being sued, but in fact is not. Step up Nintendo. It's being widely reported that ex-Midway employee Patrick Goschy was taking Ninty to the cleaners because he invented the Wii controller technology.

Not the case. For a start, Midway owned the patent, Nintendo included and paid for it. All Patrick wants, according to Engadget is, "I just wanted to people to know. Wanted the truth to come out. Did this 8 years ago, and the Wii has been such a huge deal, I wanted the truth to get out there. It wasn't these two or three Japanese guys that came up with this thing."

Apparently it's important to Pat that we all realise that it weren't them Japanese wot done it.

Check the guy out at the bottom of the story as he shows off his devices.

Okay, next up... Nintendo... and Sony. Yup, both of these corps are being sued by the same mysterious 'group' going by the name "The Copper Innovations Group". As far as we can see this is in fact one John M Copper - and has nothing do with innovating things using the metal. Details of the January 16, 1996 patent (number 5,640,152) are available here. In précis the suit regards control input devices for PlayStation 3 and Wii.

Microsoft isn't named for its Xbox 360 controller - which is not motion sensitive.

Never fear, however, as Microsoft is also getting some hard-court, sorry, hard, court action with regard to Xbox Live outages of the 'The Holiday' season. Texan law firm, called straightforwardly enough "Gibson Law Firm' is representing some disappointed gamers in the way it knows best, because Gibson Law Firm believes that "aggressive representation is effective representation".

Basically, big Jason Gibson is helping out Shannon Smith, Keith Kay and Orlando Perez in a breach of contract suit because the gamers couldn't game over Xmas.

You can read the original filing on the Jason A Gibson website here. But we'd suggest knocking politely what with all the aggressive posturing. We wonder if Microsoft might possibly have some aggressive legal representation too.

While these new suits have cropped up, we're still waiting on others from the likes of:

Nunez versus Microsoft and the Halo 3 affair.

Parallel Processing versus Sony over the great Cell Processor crime.

Microsoft versus Immersion over the Sixaxis scandal. This is the latest one, and not the 2003 case, and was mooted when Sony and Immersion decided to play nice together in March of last year.

And Finally...

[video=]Wii Controller[/video]








Companies:

Comments

daz 15 Jan 2008 20:59
1/8
"gamers couldn't game over Xmas."

That's why I love the PS3 and Wii, it plays game's offline
Hypnotoad 15 Jan 2008 23:26
2/8
SPOnG wrote:
It's being widely reported that ex-Midway employee Patrick Goschy was taking Ninty to the cleaners because he invented the Wii controller technology.

Credit where credit is due I say. Nintendo has been telling the world they came up with the Wii's motion technology - liars! Job well done Pat...perhaps you should be looking for a job at Nintendo now? If they know their arse from a hole in the ground, they should snap you up in a heartbeat.
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Absinthe-Review.net 15 Jan 2008 23:42
3/8
They should, but they won't.
PreciousRoi 16 Jan 2008 03:31
4/8
Now thanks to this asshole's lawsuit MS doen't feel it can comment on progress in resolving the "issues", due to the matter being the subject of active litigation. Apparently, "Major Nelson" had been passing along relevant, if terse information regarding efforts made to resolve the recent issues with LIVE!. I'll take, "OK its back up again." "We're working on it." or "Its broken again." over silence any day. AFAIC, sure, they might have been more prepared, but realistically...sometimes s**t just breaks or don't work, and you deal with it. Anyway I been playing mostly Rock Band either here or at one of my friends houses, so it didn't really confront me...I never had much of an issue. Annoys me a bit that I have to be signed in to LIVE! in order to play my downloaded songs (no I didn't buy into the minieconomy, I got 500 points for being a founding member)

I'm stuck on Hard at Gimmie Shelter...and I can't get better than 3 stars on Enter Sandman...
James 16 Jan 2008 08:18
5/8
@daz you love the PS3, why?

at least if xbox live goes down I have mass effect, bioshock, the orange box and crackdown to play offline, all three I think were in the top 5 best games released this year according to most surveys.

I know the orange box is ps3 also, but we all know it runs like crap on that overpriced machine.

OptimusP 16 Jan 2008 09:09
6/8
James wrote:
at least if xbox live goes down I have mass effect, bioshock, the orange box and crackdown to play offline, all three I think were in the top 5 best games released this year according to most surveys.

All non-games, don't count.
Orbstah 17 Jan 2008 16:53
7/8
James wrote:
@daz you love the PS3, why?

at least if xbox live goes down I have mass effect, bioshock, the orange box and crackdown to play offline, all three I think were in the top 5 best games released this year according to most surveys.

I know the orange box is ps3 also, but we all know it runs like crap on that overpriced machine.



hmmm some other muppet who has never actually played it on the PS3? I have and have played it from start to finish, I have not had one judder or bad fram rate anywhere within the game. So plaese stop telling everyone what your mom tells you is the truth :)
OptimusP 17 Jan 2008 19:42
8/8
Orbstah wrote:
James wrote:
@daz you love the PS3, why?

at least if xbox live goes down I have mass effect, bioshock, the orange box and crackdown to play offline, all three I think were in the top 5 best games released this year according to most surveys.

I know the orange box is ps3 also, but we all know it runs like crap on that overpriced machine.



hmmm some other muppet who has never actually played it on the PS3? I have and have played it from start to finish, I have not had one judder or bad fram rate anywhere within the game. So plaese stop telling everyone what your mom tells you is the truth :)


But our mommies love us :( Doesn't yours? Do you need love? Come here that i give you a hug!
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