Nintendo has seen a trend with lawsuits claiming patent infringement on some of their products, with the latest chapter in Nintendo’s big book of litigation putting them on the defensive for $21 million sought after by a company named Anascape.

Anascape claims that Nintendo’s controllers, including the Wii remote, Nunchuk, original GameCube controller, as well as the Wavebird all infringed on a patent which Anascape describes as “six degrees of freedom.” A judge in Texas had to agree to Anascape claims and will possibly issue a ban on the sale of all these controllers with the exception of the Nunchuk.

If these controllers were taken off the market, Nintendo will be in the worst possible position. The amount of confusion and replacement controllers would be exceedingly difficult to overcome. Nintendo does have some options to keep their devices from being wiped from existance though — all they have to do is pay royalties to Anascape and everything will continue to flow smoothly. With the obese amounts of money Nintendo makes, I’m sure they won’t mind giving a cut to Anascape to keep things running smoothly.