When we write about Nintendo and patents, it’s always Nintendo as the defendant. Now Nintendo are on the offensive, as they’ve just filed a $40 million patent lawsuit against Japanese mobile game company Colopl.
Nintendo claims Colopl violated five of its patents, including a dubious patent that covers “touch panel to manipulate a joystick”, i.e. a virtual joystick, which are common in games all over the world.
This would be one of the very few times that Nintendo has sued another company over a patent. What’s weird about this one is that it seems that the patent is so wide-covering that it shouldn’t have been a patent in the first place.
In other words, it makes Nintendo look like a patent troll.
