Nintendo will win easily...
there have been controllers with triggers ever since games first came out...
there have also been devices that you point at the screen and pull the trigger, not least TV guns for playing shooting games, which have been around since before interlink was even a company!
I saw technology like the Wii controler being used as a sword in a sword fighting game being developed as a final year uni project whilst I was at Uni.
the point is, this type of technology is reasonably easily accessible.
protecting this idea would be like going back to the first amplifier ever patented and then telling all the music technology companies and amp companies ever since that they owe your royalties and damages and that they have to pull their products from the shelves.
I have a feeling that there are copy protection laws on patents that prevent patents being used to hamper development of other products and projects.
point being that internet link can patent their technology, and they can patent the use as a mouse. but they are not competing with nintendo, the technology inside is different, and the application is different, to uphold a patent that hampered design like this would be stupid.
also Nintendo have had design releases for the Wii on the market for ages, the type and function of the controller has ben known since about this time last year, (one of the principal reasons I held of getting an Xbox 360 cause I thought I'd rather wait for the Wii...
it's unlikely that a judge will hold up a patent violation application so long into a prodcuts design cycle. (world wide release), especially since interlinks device has done so remarkably badly, (and since interlinks device borrows so many concepts from existing products, including the trigger based N64 controller anyway...
it'll be interesting, I can see Nintendo fighting a long battle, but I can't see interlink winning, and I can't see the product being pulled either.
edit...
in fact, what I said above is discussed here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/29/supremes_make_sense_of_patents/
there have been controllers with triggers ever since games first came out...
there have also been devices that you point at the screen and pull the trigger, not least TV guns for playing shooting games, which have been around since before interlink was even a company!
I saw technology like the Wii controler being used as a sword in a sword fighting game being developed as a final year uni project whilst I was at Uni.
the point is, this type of technology is reasonably easily accessible.
protecting this idea would be like going back to the first amplifier ever patented and then telling all the music technology companies and amp companies ever since that they owe your royalties and damages and that they have to pull their products from the shelves.
I have a feeling that there are copy protection laws on patents that prevent patents being used to hamper development of other products and projects.
point being that internet link can patent their technology, and they can patent the use as a mouse. but they are not competing with nintendo, the technology inside is different, and the application is different, to uphold a patent that hampered design like this would be stupid.
also Nintendo have had design releases for the Wii on the market for ages, the type and function of the controller has ben known since about this time last year, (one of the principal reasons I held of getting an Xbox 360 cause I thought I'd rather wait for the Wii...
it's unlikely that a judge will hold up a patent violation application so long into a prodcuts design cycle. (world wide release), especially since interlinks device has done so remarkably badly, (and since interlinks device borrows so many concepts from existing products, including the trigger based N64 controller anyway...
it'll be interesting, I can see Nintendo fighting a long battle, but I can't see interlink winning, and I can't see the product being pulled either.
edit...
in fact, what I said above is discussed here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/29/supremes_make_sense_of_patents/