US Court Tosses Out GE Patent Suit Against Nintendo

On Tuesday, the US District Court for the District of New Jersey granted a motion of summary judgment in favor of Nintendo. The motion throws out a patent lawsuit filed in 1995 by General Electric against Nintendo. In plain English, that means the lawsuit is over and done with. But for all of those tech heads out there, check out what GameSpot News found out about the patents.

GE claimed that Nintendo infringed on three patents that GE had acquired when it bought RCA. The patents and claims in the suit were US Patent No. 4,097,899 (Claims 12-14), US Patent No. 4,169,659 (Claims 1,3,4,5 and 13), and US Patent No. 4,279,125 (Claim 1). All of these patents refer to technology and are related to circuitry used in television sets.

Even though the case is dead, we looked into what exactly these technologies were.

Patent 4,097,899 titled "Video record player switching system" has to do with an RF output terminal linked to an antenna lead-in. The unit that would use this technology would provide the feed for both video and audio signals to the TV, and when the system is turn off, an antenna would allow for antenna signals to pass through. Basically, this refers to the technology involving video pass-through. When your VCR is off, you can still watch TV.

Patent 4,169,659 titled "Multiple standard television sync generator" appears to focus on clocking cycles of the TV. The abstract included with the patent talks about a device with the ability to output to PAL (European TV resolution), SECAM, NTSC (the American and Japanese resolution), and PAL-M. Then the claims refer to the technology for outputting video information to the TV.

Patent 4,279,125 was initially a misprint from the court office and has been included in the press release seen here at GameSpot. That US Patent number is titled "Process and system for recovery of energy from geothermal brines and other hot water containing sources," and unless Nintendo was planning to obtain energy for its next console system through geothermal means, we would have a much different story. GameSpot News talked to a key member of the Nintendo legal defense team and discovered the correct patent was actually, 4,270,125. Another Nintendo representative gave us the "Eagle Eye of the Day Award" for spotting the clerical error.

The correct patent is for "Display System" and if it sounds boring and simple, it is. GS News was also assured that no one has every used this patent, and on second check, there were no current US applications using the patent.