Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
dvds, parental controls, patents, wii

Companies:
nintendo



Nintendo Wii Doesn't Infringe On DVD Playing/Parental Control Patent

from the good-news dept

It's nice to see a patent lawsuit go in the right direction. A judge in LA has tossed out a patent infringement lawsuit against Nintendo concerning parental controls on DVD players. The only problem? The Wii doesn't play DVDs. Of course, Nintendo still faces a number of other patent infringement lawsuits, but at least this one was dealt with relatively quickly.

26 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Jun 12th, 2009 @ 5:28am
  • Frivolous?

    by Noah Buddy

    I thought lawyers could get punished for filing frivolously. IMHO I think they need to up the punishment... electro-shock therapy anyone?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 12th, 2009 @ 8:41am
  • by Anonymous Coward

    you could line them all up and try to use the same bullet

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 12th, 2009 @ 8:57am
  • by zellamayzao

    Very smart move on Nintendo's part not allowing their system to play dvd's. Though if it had the ability to play blue ray that would be one cheap blue ray player and they would have sold that many more systems. Even thought it took me quite a while to find one for my fiance.


    Silly lawyers thinking oh Nintendo is a big international company and the Wii relies on discs to play games so it has to be infringing on something for movies....lets sue. sue sue sue sue. And they wonder where the nickname *sharks* came from

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 12th, 2009 @ 10:23am
  • by Anonymous Coward

    "The Wii doesn't play DVDs...."

    ....unless of course the user exercises their right to modify their Wii.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 12th, 2009 @ 10:42am
  • What about the others?

    by Yakko Warner

    So does this mean Sony and Microsoft are infringing? Are they being sued, or are they already licensing this patent?

    And how does this patent not fall under "obvious"? DVDs have a rating. Feature request: let a user decide what ratings they want their system to be allowed to play.

    And that deserves a patent??

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 12th, 2009 @ 5:32pm
  • Sawed Off Shotgun

    by CleverName

    This proves that the patent troll mentality uses a shotgun approach to litigation. Pull the trigger enough times while spinning the shotgun around and you just might hit something. No need to verify whether your claims have merit, its time to win the lotto.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 13th, 2009 @ 2:50pm
  • Actually

    The Wii /can/ play DVD's, just not natively, see site for details (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/DVDX)

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 22nd, 2009 @ 1:21am
  • wii game

    by smilelin

    http://www.micsourcing.com/productdetail.php?category=776&id=9801
    Nintendo Wii Standard Sets + 26-In-1 Sports Pack + 40 Games
    This machine supports both NTSC and PAL color formats (note: NTSC and PAL are two major analog TV color format standard. For instance the United States uses NTSC, and UK and mass majority of European countries uses PAL). We can pre-configure the color format for you, pls find out the right color format for your locale. Important: even if your TV supports multiple color standard, the games you would purchase in your local stores and domestic online stores may not support multiple standards, so it is important for you to find out the right one.
    top quality and best price,the game you can not miss it

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 27th, 2009 @ 5:21pm
  • Ughh

    People try to sue so quickly now a days to try and make a quick buck. It's kinda pathetic. If you're gonna try and sue someone, at least make sure you have good grounds

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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