Mad Catz and NUBY lit up by lawsuit
Don't mess with the Worm Light, or you could end up facing a multi-million dollar 'suit
NYKO, developer and distributor of the world-renowned "Worm Light" for GameBoy and GameBoy Color, has filed a lawsuit against two companies, Mad Catz and NUBY, according to Yahoo this afternoon. The Worm Light is a peripheral device for the two pocket-sized Nintendo gaming devices, and it enables users to see the screen (which is not backlit) in places where direct light isn't easy to come by. The light attaches to the GameBoy's expansion port, and uses almost imperceptible amounts of power from the console's batteries. It represents an incredibly useful technological innovation that NYKO are understandably very interested in protecting, and made up by itself 25% of portable accessory sales in December 2000. The reason for the lawsuit, as with the five previous suits that NYKO have won on the subject, is that both Mad Catz and NUBY have developed a competing Worm Light. NUBY's "Cobra Light", "Bone Light", "Mech Light", and "Wild Thing" are all manufactured by Mad Catz, and all four are apparently too close to designs protected by NYKO's patents. The intellectual properties and rights to the Worm Light are protected by the patents, so when infringed, NYKO have every cause to sue for damages.