Several Years Ago, the company iLife Technologies filed suit that Nintendo had infringed on a patent they held for motion control technologies. The company, which created and patented the technology to monitor infants, claimed that Nintendo’s Wiimote controller used technology alarmingly similar to the ones they patented and asked for $144 million in damages. They won $10 million instead, but it sets a precedent that hasn’t seen much light in the gaming industry. Are we entering an era of lawsuit wars with consoles?

Although seemingly isolated, a lawsuit that not only challenges but beats Nintendo opens the doors to something that has plagued the technology industry for the past several years – patent trolls. Patent trolls are law firms, lawyers, or companies who specifically seek to patent vague, poorly worded technologies and then to sue other companies based on them. The podcast This American Life famously ran an expose about the shady companies created for the sole purpose of suing others over vague patents, and about how lucrative it is for those businesses. The most dangerous thing about patent trolls isn’t just that they often sue over miniscule details – such as microprocessors or how power is supplied to a device – but the fact that these lawsuits severely inhibit the growth and creation of new technologies.

Consoles have been largely untouched by this phenomenon, but as they continue to expand into new territory, whether with VR or motion control, they can expect far more resistance than they are used to. It is especially dangerous when the technologies being explored are in relatively small and new fields, as this is where patent trolls thrive best – in undefined, easily exploitable markets.

This isn’t to say companies haven’t already tried to take on consoles either. While the Wiimote’s troubles are coming to an end, Nintendo isn’t out of hot water. In august of 2017, they were sued again, this time over the Switch’s controllers. Also, back in 2011, a small Dallas company, Impulse Technology Ltd., sued not just Microsoft, but also EA, Konami, Nintendo, and THQ. This lawsuit, unsurprisingly, wasn’t about legacy technologies or hardware but about motion control technology. The suit was ultimately thrown out, but it goes to show that the one place video games are vulnerable is in newer technologies. In fact, a paper was written detailing that virtual reality and gaming is perhaps the most vulnerable new technology in the market today.