2mo ago

'An embarrassing failure of the US patent system': Videogame IP lawyer says Nintendo's latest patents on Pokémon mechanics 'should not have happened, full stop'

www.pcgamer.com

According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn't just a moment of questionable legal theory. It's an indictment of American patent law.

"Broadly, I don't disagree with the many online complaints about these Nintendo patents," said Sigmon, whose opinions do not represent those of his firm and clients. "They have been an embarrassing failure of the US patent system."

PC Gaming @lemmy.ca

alessandro @lemmy.ca

2mo ago

'An embarrassing failure of the US patent system': Videogame IP lawyer says Nintendo's latest patents on Pokémon mechanics 'should not have happened, full stop'

www.pcgamer.com /gaming-industry/an-embarrassing-failure-of-the-us-patent-system-videogame-ip-lawyer-says-nintendos-latest-patents-on-pokemon-mechanics-should-not-have-happened-full-stop/

123 comments

I can't wait to play Elden Ring 2 when it's made by Nintendo because Elden Ring used summoning and now only runs at 12 fps.
- Nintendo also owns the rights to platformers, racing games, and rpgs. Tough luck, that's just how it is.
  
  NPC dialogs? Owned by Nintendo too.
  
  Don't forget alarm clocks
- If it was made by Nintendo (not Gamefreak) it would actually be optimized
  
  If by optimized you mean removing most details and adding a cartoon filter over it.
  Vs
  Terrible legal practices aside.
This is why I can't support Nintendo.
death to intellectual property
- And nintendo.
- *for digital content
  
  nah, death to all intellectual property. it’s not better when it’s physical. in fact, in some cases, it’s much much worse; like with medicine patents
Copyright and patent laws need to die.
Anyone who doesn't understand this is a useful idiot.
- Current system is obviously broken, but you don't believe that artists and creators should have a right to control their intellectual property at all?
  And yes, intellectual property is real whether you want it to be or not. And it's not necessarily about money, but about controlling what can be done with your work.
  For example, Bruce Springsteen should 100% be allowed to tell Trump to fuck off and stop using his music at rallys.
  What would be the mechanism to do that without IP?
  
  Personally I don't have an issue with individual intellectual property, it's the acquisition and trade of it by corporations that I have an issue with. For example, I believe no copyright should last after the creator's death. Disney is dead, Tolkien is dead, many musicians are dead, let alive creators contribute to their worlds.
  
  It's imaginary property. It's not real and only exists in our heads. Saying someone stole your "intellectual property" is akin to saying they "stole your idea."
  It is about the money, as well. Nobody should be able to own an idea.
  Bruce Springsteen will just have to grow up and get over it.
  
  I do believe that.
  Intellectual property leads to all kind of unfairness. It should be normalized that artist would be paid for the work done, nor for property ownership.
  This adds to some other believes about people shouldn't be paid just for "property ownership".
  And once the art is done and released is part of human race, that does include terrible human beings, but it also includes absolutely everyone else.
  Some other argument for this... For instance, being an artist is one of the jobs with biggest pay disparity, from the poorest of them all to some of the richest. That's a normal output of basing income on property ownership, things snowball once you have enough property.
  I don't think there's a way to make private property (physical or intelectual) work in a fair economy. And remember, private property is not the same as personal property, just in case.
  I do think the world of art would get much better and more diverse if we got rid of property as a way to measure revenue and put work in the center as a way to measure how much we should pay each artist.
  
  To answer your first question no.
  Intellectual property is a societal construct and it is as real as racism is. Which isn't saying much.
  If an artist doesn't want their music to be heard and possibly replicated, altered, or used in a way they don't like then it is their responsibility to never release it. Only by hiding it can they keep the world from misusing it.
  
  Intellectual property is a means of production after its released. It requires no further input from the creator, and so they shouldnt have a monopoly over it.
  If the internet actually enforced copyright to the letter of the law, it wouldnt exist in its current form. No memes, no game streamers or videogame youtubers, no unlicensed music, no image sharing. Copyright needs to be defended to the best of the holders ability otherwise they lose it. It would necessitate a constant stream of scanning and policing and litigation thatd be so taxing on platforms theyd just shut down. Video game streaming operates in a legal grey zone because the law is flawed.
  Theres a reason programming tools are almost all open source. From languages to libraries to software, the alternative is just too inefficient.
  Copyright is an old shitty system from the days when books required publishers who had to register an ISBN for everything they published. The modern equivalent would be if every unique copyrightable contribution on the internet first required submitting the media to a government agency to store a hash of it and issue a UUID.
  I wouldnt say that IP doesnt exist, but once you share information with someone, they are now also a holder of that IP, just by the nature of reality.
  
  I also believe all intellectual property laws shouldn't exist, so patent, copyright, and trademark.
  
  Artists and creators already don’t control their intellectual property. The megacorporations do, and they have always violated the intellectual property rights of small artists with little to no consequences.
  Intellectual property laws are a recent and catastrophic mistake. For the majority of the history of our species, no one could retain sole ownership of art. And it was better. We make the best art when we trade it back & forth and reiterate on it.
  We should scrap intellectual property laws, and heavily tax corporate AI use to fund a national artists stipend to provide them a good standard of living.
  
  If you want a capitalist society it needs to die.
  If Trump can sell Springsteen’s music cheaper than Springsteen then that’s just the free market.
- No, they have utility as people shouldn't be able to rip off other teams work as that disincentivizes any product research , innovation or the ability to sustain yourself based on sales of your art.
  The only thing idiotic is the notion that these systems need to die rather than be refined.
  
  I agree. The only big problem I'm aware of is the length of validity for patents/copyright (and how large corporations for years were getting the laws changed so their IP could last even longer).
  After a decade or two, surely you have profiteered enough or at least had enough time to try profiteering from your idea or works? Time for public domain? 75 years (i think it is for copyright) seems crazy to me.
  Me not experto though, but I do think lowering the time you can hold your invention or works hostage from the world would be amazing for the general public and advancement of tech (even though when I say that, it sounds like stealing a baby from a mother).
- Patent law is the foundation of which our entire civilisation rest upon. I can agree it can be flawed and/or exploited sometimes.
  But only a useful idiot would want patents to not exist at all. It's the only thing that protects your innovation from being stolen by those with means to outproduce you.
  It's literally there so when you invent a new product, others (wealthy companies) can't just steal your design and flood the market with cheaper versions due to the fact that they can mass produce it.
  
  Software patents are pretty close to universally bad. Software moves fast and twenty years is ridiculous, when video codecs have grown to be biggest format and then been overtaken by their successors which in turn are overtaken by their own successors before the first codecs lose their patent then you know something is going wrong. Hardware patents have their place as you say, but software moves very quickly and can innovate just fine without the need for patents.
  In theory you could make them viable by shortening the life, to just 5 years or something, but at that point the cost of administering them probably outweighs any benefits (if there would actually be any).
  Copyright is another matter, I think we probably need that in some form (though the stupid length of copyright at the moment is even stupider for software)
  
  TIL civilisation didn't exist before the 20th century
  
  Learn to keep secrets better. China isn't exactly a vigorous enforcer of us patents anyway.
- They don't seem to be protecting creators from getting their work subsumed by AI, so they're clearly not fit for purpose. But I do think there needs to be some protection for artists and creators, it's just that either the present laws are shit or the courts can be bought.
An embarrassing failure describes the US quite well actually. Also fuck Nintendo. Don't give them your money.
I'm going to patent electrons passing through a xor gate
- You can get a licence from Nintendo if you like.
- You can probably get away with it if you write it in a confusing enough fashion; but you need to make it really confusing - to the point even CPU architecture experts could miss it unless they pay very close attention; and remember that the claims - which are the only part of the patent that has any legal meaning - may be limited by law to a single sentence each, but there is no limit on how cumbersome each sentence is; additionally, semicolons are not sentence terminators; this means that this entire comment I just wrote is technically a only one sentence.
  
  Nah, you just need to get a friendly judge to tell whoever decides to dispute your patent that they're wrong and your patent is totally valid and innovative
- patent nand and nor! You'll get much more out of it
- Prior art exists of that though so you wouldn't be able to. I know you're making a joke though lol.
  
  If Nintendo can patent MOUNTS in the year of our lord 2025, that lemming can patent logic gates.
Capcom should start their patent for 2D fighting games and see what happens to Super Smash Bros
The USPTO is notorious for granting insane patents knowing they are invalid or too vague and expect the court system to be the final arbiter. It’s almost as if they like stirring shit up for there own amusement.
- I'd wager these video game illiterates look at 1 thing: do they recognize the name of the company?
  If the answer to that is 'yes,' then they will give that company whatever they want. If the answer is 'no,' then you're fucked.
Someone in the patent office got bribed.
- This entire regime is for sale. Top to bottom.
  
  Get ready for "anti-woke" Nintendo games!
I'm fully stopped. Now what?
- Hammer time
  
  The time for "collaborate and listen" has passed. Now, the time for Nintendo to bring down hammer go hammer mc hammer yo hammer and the rest can go and play has arrived.
I'm surprised that Palworld was even able to release, honestly.
- What's frustrating is that the thing that is arguably questionable (the art of some of the characters) isn't what is the subject of anything. Nope. Ball throwing.
  
  That's because copyright and trademark are more specific than patents. You have to use the exact look to be in violation. Patents are more of a vibes protection. You can sue for close enough.
“They have been an embarrassing failure of the US ~~patent system.~~ “ seems like a trend these days

123 comments