A German court has ended the Nintendo Wii patent lawsuit against Nacon, formerly BigBen Interactive, ordering the French accessories maker to pay nearly €7 million (about $8.2 million) for infringing a European patent covering the Wii Remote. The Mannheim Regional Court issued the damages ruling on October 30, 2025, closing a fight that began in 2010 and stretched across three Nintendo console generations. Nacon has appealed, and the judgment is not yet final.1
What the Patent Covered
Nintendo sued on European patent EP 1 854 518, which claims a “game operating device” combining the Wii Remote’s ergonomic housing with an imaging device (a camera) and an acceleration sensor built into a handheld controller. The patent describes a longitudinal housing gripped in one hand, with buttons on opposing surfaces and an infrared imaging unit at the front. That unit works with external infrared sources to generate control signals from the controller’s position and orientation, the motion-control mechanism that defined the Wii era.
BigBen manufactured and sold third-party controllers compatible with the Wii console. Nintendo alleged those controllers copied the patented technology.
How the Case Dragged On for Fifteen Years
Nintendo filed in Germany in 2010. The Mannheim Regional Court found BigBen liable in 2011, and the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe upheld that finding in 2017.
Liability was one thing. Damages were another. The damages phase ran more than a decade, and according to IGN, Nacon successfully delayed a final damages determination for roughly fourteen years using tactics that included rejecting a court-appointed expert.
BigBen also attacked the patent’s validity in parallel. The European Patent Office’s Opposition Division sided with challengers in 2012, finding impermissible “added subject matter.” The EPO Board of Appeal reversed that in 2016, restoring the patent. A German nullity action produced a limitation of the claims from the Federal Patent Court in 2019, but in August 2021 the Federal Court of Justice overturned that limitation and restored the patent’s full scope.
What the October 2025 Damages Ruling Decided
In case 2 O 17/24, the Mannheim Regional Court’s 2nd Civil Chamber ordered Nacon to pay Nintendo over €4 million in lost-profit damages, plus interest at five percentage points above the base rate running from April 2018, along with legal costs. The total came to just under €7 million.
Two findings drove the number. The court assumed Nintendo would have captured 100% of BigBen’s infringing sales had those products not been on the market. BigBen argued consumers would simply have bought other third-party controllers, but the court rejected that defense, finding those alternative products were “also highly likely to infringe the patent-in-suit.”
The court also calculated damages using a lost-profits method rather than the license-analogy or infringer’s-profit approaches more commonly seen in German patent cases. Lost profits are rarely claimed in Germany because the patent holder has to open its books and prove the sales it would have made absent the infringement. Nintendo’s counsel at Bardehle Pagenberg called the ruling “remarkable” for successfully using that method, and for the court’s finding that overhead costs should not reduce the plaintiff’s lost profits.
Nacon’s Appeal and Financial Exposure
Nacon has appealed to the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe. The judgment is provisionally enforceable if Nintendo provides security, but as of mid-2026 there is no indication the damages have been paid.
The company restated its 2025/26 half-year accounts to include a €2.5 million provision tied to the dispute. Auditors required the restatement, and it delayed release of the half-year financial report. In its disclosure, Nacon noted the litigation concerns “patents held by Nintendo regarding controllers that are no longer marketed.” The €2.5 million provision sits well below the nearly €7 million judgment, suggesting Nacon expects the appeal to reduce its exposure.
The Parallel French Proceedings
Separate litigation ran in France and produced different results. The Paris Court of Appeal declared the French portion of EP 1 854 518 invalid in 2023, but in late 2025 the Cour de Cassation overturned that decision and sent the case back to the Court of Appeal. In a related April 2023 finding, French courts held that BigBen and Nacon engaged in unfair competition and misleading commercial practices by using packaging that implied their controllers came from Nintendo, and ordered Nacon to pay €1 million in damages to Nintendo France.
Other Wii Remote Patent Fights
Nintendo has been on the other side of Wii Remote patent claims too. In 2014, Royal Philips sued Nintendo in federal court in Delaware, alleging the Wii Remote infringed patents for a “virtual body control device” and a “user interface based on a pointing device.” Philips said the companies had been negotiating a license since 2011 without reaching agreement.
In a separate U.S. case, a jury found the Wii Remote infringed a patent held by iLife Technologies covering a system for evaluating body movement using acceleration sensors, and awarded iLife $10.1 million. A Dallas federal court reversed that verdict in January 2020, ruling the patent invalid because it covered an abstract idea.