The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has denied Nintendo of America’s appeal of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s validation of a motion detection patent that led to a $10.1 million jury verdict against the gaming giant earlier this year.
A Dallas jury determined Aug. 31 that Nintendo had infringed on a Dallas-based technology firm’s ‘796 patent for use in Nintendo’s Wii gaming consoles. The technology firm, iLife Technologies, filed suit against Nintendo in 2013 on patent infringement claims.
The litigation faced a significant hurdle after Nintendo asked the USPTO to review the ‘796 patent in hopes of invalidating it; but the patent survived that review, which allowed iLife to proceed to trial.
“The patent office agreed to hear Nintendo’s opinion, but ultimately ruled in favor of iLife, concluding that iLife was the first to invent the motion detection technology at issue,” said Munck Wilson Mandala managing partner Bill Munck, who represented iLife when it wrote the ‘796 patent.
In its opinion issued Wednesday, the Federal Circuit denied Nintendo’s appeal and affirmed the USPTO’s “holding that all of the challenged claims were supported by the written description of the original application.”
Munck called the Federal Circuit’s ruling an “appellate victory” and said it “is another great result for our client, iLife Technologies, and the inventor of the technology, Mike Lehrman.”
Munck Wilson also represented iLife, which has been a firm client for two decades, at trial. The trial team was led by partner Mike Wilson and included Wallace Dunwoody, Shain Khoshbin, Jake LaCombe, Dan Venglarik, Jordan Strauss and Aaron Dilbeck. All are based in the firm’s Dallas office.
To read more about the trial, read The Texas Lawbook’s previous article here.