Patent Case Review: UltimatePointer vs. Nintendo

On Tuesday, March 1, the United States Federal Circuit court ruled that disputed claims in UltimatePointer LLC’s patent on a handheld pointing device are not invalid. The court did uphold a lower court’s conclusion that Nintendo’s Wii remote did not infringe the claimed invention. UltimatePointer is a company headquartered in Houston, Texas that creates interactive laser pointers.

This decision by the Federal Circuit court is a partial reversal of a 2014 Washington federal court ruling and essentially affirms Nintendo’s win in the dispute. Additionally, UltimatePointer gets back its entire patent, the “’729” patent filed in 2010.

In the written decision, Circuit Judge Alan Lourie said the lower court was mistaken in finding that certain claims in the patent were invalid. However, the Federal Circuit said the claims accurately reflect the invention’s capabilities. In particular, claim 1 of the original patent is “An apparatus for controlling a feature on a computer generated image” referring to a handheld device that includes an image sensor and a processor to receive data. The specification in the patent describes two types of pointing devices: direct-pointing devices, such as the laser pointer and the human finger, and indirect-pointing devices, like a computer mouse. In this particular case, for Nintendo, the Wii remote can be used to control an on-screen cursor.

In 2011, UltimatePointer sued Nintendo and retailers of the Wii in the Eastern District of Texas, and the parties disputed whether “handheld device” should be limited to a direct-pointing device or whether the term also included indirect-pointing devices. The district court and federal court both believed that “handheld device” does not mean “handheld direct pointing device.” In essence, the court ruled that the Wii remote works differently from how the patented invention does.

How you feel about the federal court ruling depends highly on your interpretation of the exact definition of direct pointing. UltimatePointer believed that the court created a very narrow interpretation of direct pointing. However, I agree with Nintendo and the courts – that while the Wii remote may feel like direct pointing, the actual interactions happen with the buttons on the remote, which means that the Wii remote is more of an indirect-pointing device.