Several weeks ago, we brought you the story that Nintendo had been taken to court by a former staff member from Sony—Seijiro Tomita—who claimed that his 3D-screen idea had been stolen directly from him after a presentation, and used by Nintendo for their 3DS.
He’d claimed that during a meeting in 2003, he showed the company his invention—but the real blow seems to have come from the fact that several Nintendo employees who attended that meeting were part of the eventual 3DS creation team.
Scott Lindvall, the defense attorney for Nintendo, pointed out that at the time, Nintendo met with a number of companies who demonstrated glasses-free 3D technology and similar patents to the one held by Tomita—and that for the record, the 3DS didn’t infringe on Tomita’s patent anyway.
Unfortunately for Nintendo, the jury and the judge didn’t buy Lindvall’s statement, and gave the case’s win to Tomita.
While Tomita had originally asked or $9.80 for every 3DS sold by Nintendo—which would have left him with nearly $300 million in damages—he had to settle for $30.2 million.
Poor man.
