Nintendo Being Sued For Glasses-less 3D Screen Technology [news]

This doesn't make sense. The 3D display is made by Sharp, not Nintendo. Go after them.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I was reading it on 1up, but who knows, this patent might not be infringed at all and the display is just similar. I mean, some phones use 3D displays and they're not being sued (yet).

Oh the world where everyone is obsessed with suing everyone else and copyrighting everything. It is down right pathetic.

One of my favorite shows when I was younger, Fairly Odd Parents, touched on this subject where Cosmo trademarked breathing, so every single time someone took a breath, they had to pay up.

light bulbs are made by people that aren't Tomas Edison

Indeed.
But then, probably Sharps patents probably predate this one. They certainly had some sort of stero display way back before the original DS anyway.

Patents used to be a wonderfull idea - rewarding people that create something world-changing by ensuring they can profit from it (rather then merely the biggest company copying them and them not getting anything). Sadly now patents are almost like spam - they just patent everything possible and the patent offices cant do proper "prior art" checks, so any genine patents are lost amongst the noise of crazy things.

Apple, for example, recently got a patent on "using gestures on a multitouch display" - ignoring the fact completely there was many multitouch systems before the iPhone and almost all of them used gestures.
(Apple did use it first on phones, but that DOESNT MAKE IT AN INVENTION)

this reminds me of that time that guy who made some boxing gloves for dreamcast (that were never heard of or released) tried to claim nintendo stole the wiimote idea from him.

Im tiered of all these "oh by the way we did this in 20xx" for something thats unreleased or has no plans for release, but its nintendo so they smell money somewhere. But above your right, this seems like something they should be going after sharp for, the supplier, not the client.

Just like Nintendo said, when they got sued for Donkey Kong;

"when you get sued you know that's when your onto something big" ...or something close to that X.x

There was an idea preposed that patents should only give the patent owner royalties upto a certain percentage - they could never completely block something or sue.

I think that system would be a little better.

The really horrible thing in these patent wars is the implication or assumption that somehow an idea has been stolen.
Nintendo have been working on 3D for years - from the using glasses on the famicon, the virtual boy and it's stereoscopic, the game boy advance sp had a glasses free 3d prototype and the gamecube had 3d output capabilities. Nintendo worked damn hard for years building prototypes and pouring millions into R&D so it's unfair for some guy who scribbled some ideas on paper to dare to sue them just because Nintendo are making some money. They deserve to make money.
Besides as has already been pointed out Sharp are the suppliers of the screen.
These patent wars are getting ridiculous. I might patent the idea of patenting things. Then they're all screwed!

My guess is the patent applies to TV screens and not portables but without seeing it we could all go on and on with guess after guess.

Nintendo gets sued everytime a new system/portable is released. This one IS weird because they're getting sued during the first year that the 3DS has been available and NOT two years later as has always been the case before.

Let's not all give Nintendo preferential treatment. I.e. instant "Nintendo are innocent" before we really know anything about this case. That's fanboyism, and if you're a fanboy you need to die very quickly.

Let's stand back and see what comes of this, and give both sides the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this guy honestly did invent this technology. It wouldn't be the first time that Nintendo took someone else's work and claimed it as their own.

I smell an out-of-court settlement, which generally means the party being taken to court knows that they're in the wrong and are going to lose. Cheaper to pay the guy a few million for the right to use his invention rather than lose in court and have to take the 3DS off the market, losing billions.