Patent Office Denies Nintendo Wii Remote Trademark
- December 04, 2008 08:39 AM PST
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The official term for the Nintendo Wii controller is the Wii Remote, so of course Nintendo would like to trademark it. Problem: the U.S. Patent Office recently denied Nintendo's application.
Sorry Ninty, 'Remote' is common domain
The apparent problem: if the Patent Office allowed Nintendo to trademark "Wii Remote", it would give the impression that they own the term "remote", which is too general for anyone to own. A letter sent from the Patent Office to Nintendo on November 26th specifies the patent could only be granted if Nintendo specifically disclaimed any ownership of the word "remote" every time they used the trademark.
So how's all this legal junk relevant to gamers? Consider this: if Nintendo can't trademark the term "Wii Remote", then any third party who could successfully reverse engineer a clone of the controller could legally market it as a "Wii Remote". Given the sheer quantity of ridiculous peripherals Wii owners are already willing to buy, and the expense of Nintendo's own official remotes, there's probably a lot of money to made here at NIntendo's expense.
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- Dec 04 2008 at 09:05:46:AM PST
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1st....finally.......oh yeah, who cares about this story......i'm 1st.....that's whats up
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Thats the problem with the Wii. Nintendo does not own the rights to motion sensing (did not even invent), they do not own the rights to the Mii/Avatar system (did not even invent), and now they cannot even trademark their own "Wii remote".
And then fanboys complain that Microsoft and Sony are copying them.
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Why dont they patent the name "WiiMote" Also...where is the Wii Motion + Sensor...come on already!!!!!!!!!!
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I would never buy a 3rd party POS anyways...even if it performed just the same...they all look junky.
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MaulerX wrote:
Thats the problem with the Wii. Nintendo does not own the rights to motion sensing (did not even invent), they do not own the rights to the Mii/Avatar system (did not even invent), and now they cannot even trademark their own "Wii remote".
And then fanboys complain that Microsoft and Sony are copying them.
at this point I prefer both the 360 and the PS3 to the Wii, but I'm also big enough to know that whoEVER is #1.....the rest will try and copy.
It's not just the Nintendo fanboys that say this, ... most of the gaming community can comfortably say this now......yes, both Sony AND MS copy Nintendo...
who cares?
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how about some silly names like "wiistick" , "wiiwacker", "wiipad"....if any names get used i want some royalties please
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It's not like other companies can use the term "Wii Remote" either... so why bother? They own the trademark for Wii... that should be enough!
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