Gamevice, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Background

Gamevice sued Nintendo of America, Inc. and Nintendo Co., Ltd. for allegedly infringing claims in U.S. Patent Nos. 9,808,713 and 10,391,393. The accused product was the Nintendo Switch. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, which asks whether the undisputed evidence requires judgment as a matter of law without a trial.

In an earlier order, the court found that all asserted claims except claim 16 of the ’713 patent were invalid because the Switch had already disclosed the claimed inventions. After reconsideration, the court amended that ruling and identified six remaining claims that were not invalid on that basis: claims 3, 4, 6, 7, and 16 of the ’713 patent and claim 6 of the ’393 patent.

Gamevice sought summary judgment on the theory that Nintendo was barred by judicial estoppel or the law-of-the-case doctrine from arguing noninfringement. Gamevice relied on Nintendo’s earlier alternative argument that the Switch contained the elements of the claims for purposes of Nintendo’s invalidity defense. Nintendo sought summary judgment that the Switch did not infringe any of the asserted claims.

Gamevice’s Motion

The court denied Gamevice’s motion. It explained that a patent defendant may use the patent owner’s infringement allegations to make an alternative anticipation defense while still maintaining a noninfringement defense. The court concluded that Nintendo’s alternative pleading did not amount to a concession that the Switch infringed.

Because Nintendo was not bound by that alternative position, the court rejected Gamevice’s judicial-estoppel and law-of-the-case arguments. The remaining claims therefore required a traditional infringement analysis, including determining the meaning of the patent claims and comparing those claims with the Switch.

Nintendo’s Motion

The court granted Nintendo’s motion for summary judgment. It focused on whether the Switch contained particular claim limitations, including “passageway,” “confinement structures,” “input module apertures” that secure an instructional input device, and “computing device.”

The court found that disputed facts prevented summary judgment based on the passageway limitation. It also found that whether the Switch satisfied the computing-device limitation involved a material factual issue for a jury.

The court reached a different conclusion about the confinement-structures limitation. That term had been construed to mean physical components that hold a computing device. The court found that the Switch’s rails did not hold all of the components that Gamevice identified as the computing device. Contact between the rails and the device, fastening the rails with screws, and attaching the Joy-Con controllers did not establish that the rails were confinement structures under the patent claims.

The court also found that Gamevice could not prove the required apertures limitation. It reasoned that the holes in the Joy-Con controllers allowed the buttons and joysticks to pass through and move, but did not secure the joysticks; the joysticks were secured by screws. The court therefore concluded that the Switch did not satisfy the confinement-structures and apertures limitations recited by claims 3, 4, 6, 7, and 16 of the ’713 patent and claim 6 of the ’393 patent.

Disposition

The court denied Gamevice’s motion for summary judgment and granted Nintendo’s motion for summary judgment. It ruled that the listed claims were not infringed by the Switch. The court also granted Nintendo’s administrative motion to seal certain exhibits attached to a declaration and an unredacted version of its summary-judgment motion because the request was limited to confidential and commercially sensitive information.