Hillcrest Laboratories sued Nintendo today claiming the game maker is using their motion-control inventions in the Wii, Bloomberg reports.

Hillcrest is seeking to block imports of the Wii and Wii remotes, according to a complaint filed today with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. Hillcrest also filed a civil suit in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"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,'' the company said in a statement.

Three of the patents are for motion control tech and a fourth for the graphics user interface. Hillcrest are the people behind motion-control tech Freespace and a graphic interface tech called Home.

Bloomberg reports that the ITC case will likely go first and can take about 15 months to be investigated.

Nintendo's Wii Faces Complaints by Hillcrest Labs [Bloomberg]

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