A small Rockville technology company requested a U.S. trade panel on Wednesday to prevent Japanese video gaming giant Nintendo from importing its popular Wii video game system in the United States, claiming patent infringement. In addition to this, Hillcrest Labs filed a lawsuit in federal court for unnamed damages, the company announced.

The video game system benefited from great success since its late 2006 release, as it permits players to move a remote back and forth so as to play tennis or even incline the remote left or right to drive a vehicle.

Nonetheless, the Rockville-based company asserts it owns the patents to the technology supporting the system. The technology employed by Hillcrest allows subscribers to choose movies, surf the Internet and manage their cable box without using the already traditional method of pushing the button on a standard controller. Users are able to tilt a device in just any direction in front of a computer or television screen.

The seven-year-old Hillcrest released a statement that said that it strongly believed that the Japanese company violated Hillcrest’s patents. “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 statement read. However, the company would not give further information upon the matter.

On the other hand, Nintendo spokesman Charlie Scibetta said the Japanese company had not been served with any lawsuit and, therefore, would not give any comment.

Moreover, according to The Washington Post, Samson Vermont, a patent expert and law professor at George Mason University said that even if the Rockville-based company’s claims were justifiable, it would be practically impossible to stop Nintendo from putting its popular product on the market. “It could happen, but the stakes would be so high that Nintendo wouldn’t let it happen,” Samson Vermont said.