It's pretty much a guaranteed thing nowadays. Someone will strip your device apart, look it up and down, and then find something, somewhere that vaguely resembles something they have a patent on, then immediately throw lawsuits at people to make cash.

This doesn't seem right to me. The article says:

"According to an attorney for the plaintiff, Texas-based Lonestar Inventions alleges that the Wii infringes on a patent it holds for a "high capacitance structure in a semiconductor device." The patent in question was issued in 1993, and details a space-saving method tripling the effectiveness of parallel plate capacitors by using layers of conducting strips."

Now, unless I'm wrong - Nintendo doesn't design OR manufacture the chips used in the Wii (unless this refers to something they did design/manufacture, i.e. not related to the main GPU/CPU).

So its not actually Nintendo infringing - its either IBM or ATI(AMD) - or some other company.

Next...

Nintendo gets sued just as much as either Microsoft or Sony over such issues. It's just more news worthy with Nintendo since their Patented Controller is one of its most unique features. Nintendo will settle out of court like they have before for pennies on the dollar, no biggie.

What a surprise to see who's thread this is. :)

 I guess you missed all the threads about Sony's legal troubles, yes it's crazy how biased I am against the Wii for listing this news...

It's really horrible.

ckmlb has a Wii

Someone needs to redo the while patent system...

 It doesn't matter cause if I question anything about a game on Wii I am branded a Sony fanboy by Gballzack.

So tell me, If I owned a PS3 would that make me unbiased in anything I had to say about Sony or the Ps3? I own a PS2 so I guess that gives me free liscence to say whatever I want about the PS2 and still be unbiased right. Wonderful logic. Obviously Cklmb could never possibly have any ill reservations towards the Wii when he owns one, lol.

Nintendo doesn't settle (except in the rare cases where they are in the wrong). They counter sue for millions in lawyer fees and the plaintifs run away.

So I can just patent, "high yield " and wait for someone to make it... lol