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mysteryman on 13 August 2017
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Nuvendil said:
mysteryman said:

The lawsuit is over the patent for the Wikipad patent, not the Gamevice controller. 

A key feature explicitly stated in the patent is a "bridge" section which sits behind the tablet and connects both halves of the controller, which act as one unit. You can even see above in the second photo that the Gamevice controller is one device connected by a strap which sits behind the phone.

Seeing as the Switch Joycons are two separate controllers that individually work and connect to the Switch console, the entire lawsuit hinges on their claim that the Switch console itself is acting as this "bridge" section of the Wikipad controller patent.

If this were the case, there would be no need to mention a "bridge" section in the patent design in the first place, so the suit is without merit.  

Well you have the issue backwards.  They are making the argument over the Switch being the bridge because their patent specifically mentions that bridge.  Which matters.  Mentioning such specific details narrows your control over similar designs.  This was famously used by Tesla in 1893 to get around Edison's patent on the lightbulb.  The Tesla bulb looked almost identical but used a different plug system and different filament shape/design.  Because of the specificity of Edison's  patent, it worked.

Another issue is purpose.  See, patents for things like this deal in utility, not just appearance.  And the Wikipad patent specifically references - if the quote I saw is accurate - bringing physical control inputs and traditional gaming experiences to a tablet.  And the new Gamevice controller similarly references tablets and smartphones.   This is obviously problematic for the suit since the stated utility of the Joy-Con's are entirely different since they pertain to only a proprietary device and serve more than that individual function.

As for appearance, that is convered in patents but to win solely on that, the thing needs to be virtually identical.

My point was that if any screen used alongside the wikipad could be counted as a bridge, the bridge itself is redundant and would not be a noteworthy feature.