Current Events > Nintendo's new 'summon and fight' patent could threaten hundreds of video games

(+) Yeah! (+)

Megaten was summoning monsters to fight for you over a decade before Pokemon existed.

CE: "omg fuck Nintendo"

Also CE when Nintendo releases the switch 3 at $1000: "eh the price isn't that bad"

Rando Nintendo fanboys or lawyers, fuck its just so hard to figure out who knows more about patent law!

Can you show examples of some of these lawyers?

About 12 seconds of googling

https://80.lv/articles/embarrassing-failure-of-the-us-patent-system-ip-lawyer-on-nintendo-s-new-patents

Weren't you the person that said you had already been reading said articles talking with lawyers? That's why I was asking you for examples, because I wanted to see what you had been reading, and that's not something I can get just from googling.

It's almost like I don't have urls memorized and so if I'm going to find info that you can easily find yourself then I'd have to look it up again.

This is super easy info for anybody to look up as it has been widely reported.

For anyone just tuning in, the patent has nothing to do with nintendo "owning" the idea of catching and summoning creatures.

It's specifically patenting the collection of ideas central to the movement and exploration from Pokemon Legends Arceus. And unless a game has all of these ideas simultaneously in their game, Nintendo cannot claim any kind of infringement.

Read the patent yourself: https://archive.org/details/12409387/page/n26/mode/1up

For anyone just tuning in, the patent has nothing to do with nintendo "owning" the idea of catching and summoning creatures.

It's specifically patenting the collection of ideas central to the movement and exploration from Pokemon Legends Arceus. And unless a game has all of these ideas simultaneously in their game, Nintendo cannot claim any kind of infringement.

Read the patent yourself: https://archive.org/details/12409387/page/n26/mode/1up

Or you can listen to all the experts who are saying otherwise, including Nintendos own ex chief legal officer.

Okay, I'm sorry for asking you for information on the sources of your views.

Or you can listen to all the experts who are saying otherwise, including Nintendos own ex chief legal officer.

Don McGowan, former chief legal officer at The Pokmon Company, believes the patent will likely be ignored. "I wish Nintendo and Pokmon good luck when the first other developer just entirely ignores this patent and, if those companies sue that developer, the developer shows decades of prior art," he told Eurogamer, adding: "This isn't Bandai Namco with the loading screen patent".

"The filing for such patent protection indicates that Nintendo does intend to pursue a legal strategy in defending itself against entrants in the pocket monster genre," games industry lawyer Richard Hoeg told Eurogamer. "But that strategy may or may not involve lawsuits, as the 'muddying of the waters' effected by the patents existence may be enough to deter investment in and creation of competitors. That is, if Nintendo looks like it could pounce, that may be enough. No actual pouncing required."
What's more, the patent is broad and Nintendo won't want to jeopardise seeing it narrowed in the context of a legal challenge, Hoeg explained.
"So yes, it's enforceable in so far as it has been granted," said Hoeg, "but Nintendo likely knows it 'got away with one' here and would prefer not to make a court actually sign off."

From the article rick_alverado linked:

Basically saying this won't hold up in court.

Basically saying that if Nintendo DOES decide to take somebody to court for this patent, they know that the court will say it's too broad and make it less specific and thus harder to enforce in the future.

So they just want to scare indie devs who can't afford to go to court to just.. not make video games apparently.

That's not great tbh

If the effect of this is anything, thats probably what itll be. A lot of smaller devs and studios will just decide not to do anything even vaguely resembling this to avoid trouble. Well never really know how many games were scrapped, altered, etc. because of it.

Unless you pull some Palworld shit, with "barely above the recolor tier of Sonic OC character design" type shenanigans, I don't think most need to seriously be worried about a suit from Nintendo.

If Nintendo is upset about PalWorlds creature designs then they should go after them over copyright grounds.

They aren't of course because they know the Pals are legally distinct and that they have no case so instead they're going full on patent troll and the Nintendo Defence Force is ready to go to war for a their favourite corporation. This of course as already pointed out will stifle innovation in the industry way beyond just PalWorld but ya'll don't care.

Basically saying that if Nintendo DOES decide to take somebody to court for this patent, they know that the court will say it's too broad and make it less specific and thus harder to enforce in the future.

If Nintendo is upset about PalWorlds creature designs then they should go after them over copyright grounds.

They aren't of course because they know the Pals are legally distinct and that they have no case so instead they're going full on patent troll and the Nintendo Defence Force is ready to go to war for a their favourite corporation. This of course as already pointed out will stifle innovation in the industry way beyond just PalWorld but ya'll don't care.

Don't defend Palworld for ripping off Pokmon.

Anyone who can't pay a million dollars needs to worry about a potential million dollar lawsuit. You can't say "oops, I thought you wouldn't enforce this, im sorry " at that point

Videogame companies, hell, just companies in general, hold all sorts of stupid little patents. Unless it's from a patent troll or catch a high-profile target, most will never be invoked. For an example of a stupid patent, did you know Namco actually had a patent for minigames during load screens? I believe the Namco patent expired, & even if it didn't, wouldn't really have much value with modern data transfer rates, but the point is that it did happen.

As for patent trolls, Nintendo itself, had quite the battle with some company, regarding the Wii's motion reading that you would think would be in conflict with lightgun reading, but they had it, & last I recall, I believe Nintendo settled. if you knew how silly some patents are, you'd wonder how almost anyone avoids getting sued. It's ridiculous, & we really need an overhaul of patent & trademark law that doesn't require or encourage such actions, but this is where we currently are.

Namco actually had a patent for minigames during load screens? I believe the Namco patent expired, & even if it didn't, wouldn't really have much value with modern data transfer rates, but the point is that it did happen

I think if nintendo wasn't so trigger happy to sue anyone, they think slightly infringes on them people wouldn't care for the patents, but since nintendo LOVES to sue anyone and anything that's why people are worried about them getting approval for these patents

Everyones still waiting for a list of these supposed hundreds of lawsuits over patents.

wow that's nice lol where did I mention they sue over patents alot? I said nintendo is trigger happy to sue in general and that is well documented

https://www.suedbynintendo.com/

wow that's nice lol where did I mention they sue over patents alot? I said nintendo is trigger happy to sue in general and that is well documented

https://www.suedbynintendo.com/

Giving that website a quick glance over, it looks like a useful repository of information, although I'm a bit iffy on the name of the website considering how many of the things it's listing are things other than Nintendo suing people.

So 36 times since 1989, the majority of which were related to piracy or IP theft.

Also some of the other examples on that site are based on faulty information, like the one that says the Expansion Pack costs $50/year on top of the base price of NSO, which it doesn't.

I found more articles and some about are technically more than one, like once get hit with 500 copyright claims but gathering all those articles is a chore tbh

you can simply search "list of nintendo lawsuits" and quite bit of searches

I found more articles and some about are technically more than one, like once get hit with 500 copyright claims but gathering all those articles is a chore tbh

you can simply search "list of nintendo lawsuits" and quite bit of searches

Giving that website a quick glance over, it looks like a useful repository of information, although I'm a bit iffy on the name of the website considering how many of the things it's listing are things other than Nintendo suing people.

I'm not sure why my post was being quoted for this reply?

oh well like you said some of the info was iffy and I thought if you were interested in getting a bit more reliable info you could search it by the way I did, that's it

I mean, that's fine, but we're specifically asking about Nintendo lawsuits for their patents, like everybody claims they constantly weaponize these for.

Providing a list of non-patent-related Nintendo lawsuits is like answering "Taco Bell" when asked what your favorite pizza place is. Sure, they technically have a pizza on their menu, but it's not what anybody is asking you about.

I said the name was iffy.

you're find almost none then, as people have said nintendo usually hits by copyright claims, if they have ever gone by patents then I couldn't find any. it because they can't hit plaworld with copyrights claims, that they went through patents claims

I'm also still waiting for the giant list of games/developers that Nintendo has sued and shut down specifically for patent infringement.