A Rockville, Maryland technology company has filed suit against Japanese gaming giant, Nintendo over the controllers for its popular Wii game system.  The seven-year old company, Hillcrest Labs asked a U.S. trade panel to stop Japan-based Nintendo from importing its Wii system into the United States and filed a suit in federal court for unspecified damages. Hillcrest labs claim that it owns the patents to the underlying technology of the Wii system.  According to an interview with the Washington Post, Hillcrest claims its technology “allows users to select movies, browse the Web, control their cable box or otherwise interact with content — not by pressing a button on a conventional controller, but by moving a device left, right, up and down in front of a television or computer screen.”Hillcrest later said in a statement, “while Hillcrest Labs has a great deal of respect for Nintendo and the Wii, Hillcrest Labs believes that Nintendo is in clear violation of its patents and has taken this action to protect its intellectual property rights…”.  Nintendo has decided not to comment until it receives formal notification of the suit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082003562.html?hpid=sec-tech