3DS Technology Stolen?Follow

First saw this on Kotaku.

He has a patent in both the US and Japan for a system that allows you to view 3D images with the naked eye (and is an active engineer that worked for Sony for over 30 years before retiring to live his life as an inventor, has 70 patents to his name, and has applications for over 100 worldwide.

Oh, and his patent was issued in 1999.

So... he might actually have a legitimate case. Especially since third-party organizations had already licensed his technology before the 3DS came out, and neither Nintendo company (US or Japan) have licenses.

Will be very interesting to see where this goes. When these things come up, it is usually for technologies that only BARELY apply to the product and are, in themselves, extremely vague. But this is by someone who has a name in the industry and has a patent for working technology, not just an idea, and a precedent for licensing.

It seems that he had just been working as an inventor since he retired from Sony in 2002. I imagine he just enjoys developing new systems and such, and then leaving them to other companies to decide the functionality. That's not really uncommon, and I imagine he would only have left Sony if he wanted the freedom to work on his own ideas without having to produce reasons why something could be awesome.

And I'm betting he probably makes decent money. If he wins this case, I'm assuming he'll be set for life (if he isn't already).

Yeah, Nintendo should probably be worried.

Because that's not what a patent is about. A patent is the right to prevent others from commercializing an idea, no a right to profit off of your own idea. It's incredibly common for one business to patent an idea having no idea how to profit off of it and then sell or license that patent to others who do.

Also patent law isn't so simple. Just because he has a patent for 3d technology and Nintendo uses 3D technology doesn't mean they have infringed on his patent, which is why there is a court case.