The official term for the Nintendo Wii controller is the Wii Remote, so of course Nintendo would like to trademark it. Problem: the U.S. Patent Office recently denied Nintendo's application.

The apparent problem: if the Patent Office allowed Nintendo to trademark "Wii Remote", it would give the impression that they own the term "remote", which is too general for anyone to own. A letter sent from the Patent Office to Nintendo on November 26th specifies the patent could only be granted if Nintendo specifically disclaimed any ownership of the word "remote" every time they used the trademark.

So how's all this legal junk relevant to gamers? Consider this: if Nintendo can't trademark the term "Wii Remote", then any third party who could successfully reverse engineer a clone of the controller could legally market it as a "Wii Remote". Given the sheer quantity of ridiculous peripherals Wii owners are already willing to buy, and the expense of Nintendo's own official remotes, there's probably a lot of money to made here at NIntendo's expense.

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Steve_Cebu

My wife and I call it the Wiimote. I think it's a better name and it's probably possible to trademark Wiimote as well. There is too much insanity over copyright issues at present. The farce that is the DMCA is abused something fierce by various companies.
Nintendo, call it the Wiimote and problem solved.

Lynxara

Hilariously, Nintendo would probably have difficulty getting a Wiimote trademark through. Another company trademarked a special TV remote control unit for preschoolers called the "Weemote" in 2000 or so.

Around 2007, they started sending C&D letters to consumer sales sites that referred to the Wii Remote as the "Wiimote" in product descriptions. The Weemote guys allege that use of "Wiimote" for the Nintendo controller dilutes the Weemote trademark.

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