You must have put those nitty bitty details pretty far aside because Nintendo doesn't have the patent on force feedback technology.
Here's how it went.
The N64 Rumble Pak and Gamecube controller use a custom rumble motor unlike other designs. As far as I know, Nintendo holds the patent on this specific design.
The force feedback motors in Logitech hardware, the Dual Shock and the Xbox and Xbox 360 controllers is a second design, which is patented by Immersion Corporation. Nintendo licensed the Immersion rumble technology for the Wii. Logitech licenses the rumble technology from Immersion and hold some force feedback patents of their own.
When Sony developed the Dual Shock controller they went to Logitech for some technologies and patents. Logitech licensed some force feedback patents to them but not the patents relevant to the actual rumble device.
Immersion sued Microsoft and Sony for intellectual property infringement because they both used rumble motors based on an Immersion design. Microsoft settled out of court and, as part of the agreement, bought significant shares in Immersion Corporation.
Sony refused to settle, battled it out, and lost. Immersion tried to get an injunction against selling the Dual Shock 2 but this was tied up in red tape. Sony is currently in the process of appealing the ruling. This is the reason Sony claims they couldn't have added rumble to the SIXAXIS: if they admitted they weren't going to include the rumble mechanism in the SIXAXIS because of the lawsuit, it would essentially be an admission of guilt and they would automatically lose the appeal.