!060694 Nintendo infringes patent - may owe $300 million+ A US District Court jury in New York has found Nintendo of America guilty of infringing a patent held by a bankrupt computer company, a decision that could cost Nintendo hundreds of millions of dollars. The verdict game in a lawsuit filed in 1986 by the trustees of Alpex Computer Corporation, which went bankrupt in 1983. The company claims a basic patent on video game consoles that attach to television sets and use removable cartridges, and which feature rotating images on the screen. Most other video game companies, including Sega and Atari, had previously reached settlement agreements with Alpex, so the verdict is not expected to have broad consequences. The Alpex patent, filed in 1977, expired last week. The damages phase of the Alpex/Nintendo trial will begin next month. Alpex says Nintendo sold $3.5 billion of game consoles and cartridges that infringed on its patent, and Alpex will seek 10 percent to 12 percent of those sales as damages, according to attorney Richard Sayler of the Cleveland law firm Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue. Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service