Game console makers apparently entertain every single idea, no matter how silly. The latest patent dreamed up by the big N is a football accessory that holds a Wiimote and nunchuk. The idea is that it could determine throwing angle, power and direction as well as body movements, which are then translated to the game.

It beats an inflatable horse, but do we really need to be breaking more TVs, with fake footballs? It’s just a patent, but you never know. We may see this one down the road. Good idea or not.

If you thought that the already available range of Wiimote attachments was crazy, check this out. They are not out of gimmicky ideas just yet. The patent system gives us a glimpse at an inflatable horse-riding controller that may or may not one day have geeks parting with their money.

The inflatable cushion has a spot for your Wiimote and can track your crazed bucking and thrashing as you shout yeehaw, translating it into horse movement. You would hold the nunchuk as if holding the reins.

Patent disputes are so common that many of us just overlook them today. It seems like each week a new dispute is filed between two companies. HP and Cornell University have been fighting it out in court over a patent infringement suit for a while now.

Cornell filed the suit alleging that HP was infringing on Cornell patents by selling HP PA-8000 microprocessors along with workstations and servers using the processors. A jury awarded Cornell $53 million to $184 million in damages.

There are all kinds of nifty spy gadgets you can buy to get your sleuth on, but if those products aren’t doing it for you, Sony has something new that you may want to check out. According to a site called Siliconera, Sony has filed a patent for a remote-controlled car that would use the PSP as an interface.

It’s equipped with a camera to feed video to the PSP and users would be able to upload the footage to a website if they want. But that’s not all. The patent mentions an augmented reality racing game. The game recognizes real objects as elements in the racing game, so basically, you build your own track from stuff ou have around the house.

Apple has had some success with their unibody MacBooks, so it makes sense that they would start considering the possibility of introducing unibody iPods in the future. That’s what this recently released patent application suggests.

A unibody iPod could mean a lighter, thinner and tougher iPod, plus they save money by using fewer parts. Otherwise, the iPod classic shown here remains pretty much the same, but “the final part looks like it was machined down from a large thick slab of material,” according to Apple.

Remember Nintendo’s gaming robot ROB? Well, it looks like Sony has a new patent application for an add-on gaming robot, which will react to both the game and the user.

The patent was filed in June last year, for a robot that moves around the room detecting the environment, and then displaying the same on the integrated screen. The bot would be equipped with wheels, acceleration sensors, camera, microphone and speakers to carry out all of it’s sinister missions, like listening and responding to user commands.

When you have a popular product all sorts of things, both good and bad, come along with that. You have to deal with copycat products and lawsuits form companies trying to get in on the action. The Nintendo Wii is the most popular game console around and as a result, Nintendo has had to fight several patent infringement suits over the innovative console.

A judge in Tyler, Texas has tossed out a patent infringement lawsuit brought by a company called Fenner Investments against Nintendo. The suit alleged that the Wii console along with its controllers and the GameCube infringed upon patents held by Fenner.

Apple may be looking into a wireless remote wand to power the next generation of Apple TV media systems, offering the cursor on the Apple TV display the kind of accuracy a mouse gives the cursor on a PC. Just like millions of Nintendo Wii owners around the world.

Unlike the current 5-button remote for the current version of Apple TV, the wand would be capable of controlling a bunch of new operations and applications that may be available from the media system, including zoom operations, a keyboard application, an image application, an illustration application, and a media application.

Patents are often looked on with disdain by consumers and other businesses. The problem is that many patents that are approved are for technologies that were already around or not new. This leaves firms that have been producing products similar to a newly issued patent open for suit.

Many are feeling that this is the case with the patent Apple was granted on multi-touch and gesture control for computers and mobile phones. Multi-touch and gesture control are commonly used in the technology world. I wondered yesterday if Apple’s new patent would send the company on a crusade of legal action against everyone who is using multi-touch in their products.

Patents are a huge source of income for many companies, whatever the companies plan to do with the patents. Sometimes patents end up being used exclusively by one company and other times the company will license the patents to other firms for a fee.

Apple has been granted a major patent recently that covers multi-touch and gesture controls on computers and computer-like devices. With the massive popularity of touch-capable devices, this patent could prove to be the most lucrative patent Apple owns.

It’s a common problem. You have your headphones on and you’re in a crowd, but the music is drowned out by the crowd. Well, check this out. This Apple patent takes a look at dynamic volume adjustment that is based on your surroundings, not your music.

Looks like a sound sensor would detect the ambient noise and adjust itself based on the situation. The system wouldn’t force you to keep it at it’s own preferences and would take into account the user’s own choices for volume when setting the sound level. Interestingly, the patent application was first filed shortly after the launch of the original iPhone. Obviously Apple isn’t using it to date, but they already use ambient sensors to detect light for the displays on the iPhone, iPod touch etc.

Check out this patent for a PS3 Wiimote device which can be split into two to suit different gaming methods. The technology is similar to Nintendo’s Wiimote, featuring accelerometers, LED-based tracking etc. One of the unique functions of the controller is the ability to send out ultrasonic frequencies that can determine the absolute xyz position. Will we ever see this from Sony? You can bet on it, but likely in an updated form. Everybody is trying to keep up with the Wii while making motion based games uniquely their own.

Ask anybody and they’ll tell you Apple invented the iPod. Not entirely correct according to Apple themselves, who has credited a UK man as author of some of the original patents that outlined how today’s PMPs work. Kane Kramer had no idea about iPods back then, but he sketched out a rudimentary media player in 1979. Sadly, financial difficulties in 1988 meant he couldn’t renew the patent and so it entered the public domain. Apple then used the concept as evidence in their legal case against Burst.com, who were accusing the company of patent infringement and looking for a slice of iProfits.

Kramer’s PMP was called the IXI, and stored only 3.5 minutes of audio and oddly enough it even looks just a bit like what eventually became the iPod. The inventor had to endure ten hours being questioned by Burst’s legal team, who had claimed that the intellectual property of four patents they held was being used by Apple without payment or agreement. Obviously now that Apple has fessed up, Kramer is looking at some kind of compensation. Apple did give Kramer a free iPod that apparently broke after several months. Sadly if not for the lawsuit Kramer may have lived in relative obscurity and we would never have known.

It’s far from the first time that Apple has filed patents for some kind of tablet computer. It’s been described in the past as a large iPhone, or as a full tablet, but these latest images look like a large mobile internet device that would be pretty neat. Most of the 52-page filing is in regards to the touchpad.

The device would be large enough to read easily and use, but also thin and light. One of the images has an interesting virtual keyboard. Some of the illustrations show a tablet Mac with a full windowing interface, where interface windows can be enlarged, shrunk, moved, and cycled, rather than being locked in place like the iPhone. Click the link for an interesting read on more details.

Here’s the perfect watch for the time traveller. It will offer some protection will blending in with the American old west. If things get out of hand in the saloon, just make like you’re checking the time and fill somebody full of lead. That’s because the folks at time travel HQ have replaced the clock gears inside with a 3mm gun.

The hands don’t move, so just act like your watch is broken if anybody asks for the time. As far as the gun, it will most likely annoy rather then kill, but they’ll be so stunned that you shot them with your watch that you’ll be an instant badass and probably become the new sheriff.