just looked a bit more into the patent since some of the pictures  of teh controller look quite different and found out the patent covers a few different options how to mix IR or visual trackicng with ultrasonic.

the final picture as an example puts the cameras in the controllers and uses an external refference point (you don't need the spheres at the controller with such a design). also in some parts the spheres are from a special material to make it possible to illuminate them with IR light and make them easier detectable with a infrared and visual camera (which alters between taking ir and vis images to increase precission).

also tracking of body parts additionally to the controllers with the same camera is covered.

on the question of the validity of the patent i can only say that that all these tracking methods allready exist and are in use for some years allready in Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality research (but also the wii was not using anything that hadn't existed in VR/AR research before). in  VR/AR research you usually mix a few different tracking systems to get full 6 degrees of freedom tracking (position vector and speed/orientation vector tracking) and most tracking techniques have been researched since the nineties (some even longer than that). So the question with this patent is if this exact combination of these tracking technologies and the use of them for a gamecontroller is enough improvement/differences over other patents to allow it as a new one. But i don't have to decide this and it looks like patent agencies allso don't decide much since these days companies can patent everything and the validity of the patent will be tested in front of a court if anothr company thinks their patent is violated.

P.S I really think the whole patent system needs a big revamp, there is just too much abuse of patents going on these days.

Yep it looks like crap -
They have not even figured out how to use the features of the existing sixaxis or the PS3 eye and they come up with pathetic patents like this - what idiots.
They should licence the gesture recognition technology from toshiba and voice recognition from IBM and make games which can be played without any controller just using the ps3 eye !.

LOL   

Yeah, the patent is wide in scope and tries to cover quite many different approaches, which IMO sort of goes against what a patent should be, but that's just me. But regarding placing the camera in the controller and using external reference points is likely infringing on the Nintendo patents, though I haven't read them so I am just supposing so. Anyway, I agree with you, the patent system is currently broken because the patent offices do not have sufficient knowledge to assess the applications. I think there are some attempts to open up the approval process so that 3rd parties could provide information in case there's an attempt to patent something that has been known and used already well before. I hope that's the direction where we're going: fewer patents approved, but less misuse of the system. Currently the stacks are so heavily against small start-ups that it's not even funny.

Guys, the ball at the end is just patent-business. Covering bases and all. The final controller, if indeed manufactured, won't utilize a big ol' ball. It'll be far sleeker, I assure you.

Although it DOES look like total BS to me.

I vote for egg-shaped final design. Egg is very meaningful in a lot of ancient religions and philosophies, it should make a lot of sense. And let's not listen to nutter neo-proto-christians suggesting a fish- or pelican-shaped sensor!!!

What? Pelican? Where the heck do you get that from Christianity?

Pelican in paleochristian communities symbolism was a symbol of extreme sacrifice for the good of the children.

Edit: fish paleochristian, pelican medieval symbol (it was thought to feed its babies with its own blood and flesh, so it became a symbol of the Passion of Christ)