In recent times we have seen how patent trolls have become one of the great problems that large companies face, trolls that do not invest in R&D but rather buy companies that have patents and then start suing the big boys to get a cut.
The case we are talking about today is not about a patent troll, but about a company involved in the video game industry for a few years: Gamevice. According to this company, the Nintendo Joy-Con are clearly inspired by the Wikipad of this company.
As is customary in this type of lawsuit, especially if a large company is involved, Gamevice has requested the stoppage of sales and their distribution while the trial is taking place, which is obviously not going to happen.
As we can see in the image above, Nintendo may have a serious problem with this company, since the resemblance is quite reasonable. Nintendo did not register the Nintendo Switch until 2014, while the Gamevice company registered both the Wikipad and its different versions in 2012, two years earlier.
Surely none of you have used a device from this company, but of course wants to make the most of the inspiration that Nintendo appears to have used when creating the controllers for the Nintendo Switch. As we have seen in recent years, that one product is similar to another is not usually synonymous with a copy, as we saw years ago when Apple sued Samsung for the first Samsung Galaxy that hit the market.
These kinds of demands, usually takes a long time and if it takes too long, on some occasions the defendant firm, in this case Nintendo, wants to reach an economic settlement out of court.