Slashdot Mirror
EFF's Patent Busting Targets Nintendo, Solitaire Patents
Thanks to the EFF site for its list of 'Patent Busting's Most Wanted' miscreants, the top ten patents "that pose the biggest threat to the public domain", as previously mentioned in a Slashdot mainpage post. However, Slashdot Games-relevant entries worth investigating further include an entry on Nintendo, accused of "threatening reverse engineering of videogames to promote interoperability and emulation by hobbyists and entrepreneurs like Crimson Fire Entertainment and Gambit Studios", and an entry on Sheldon F. Goldberg, accused of "claiming to own basic online gaming architecture [as well as Solitaire]." The article indicates: "EFF's team of lawyers and technologists will be tracking down prior art and preparing to petition the Patent and Trademark Office for revocation of these offenders' patents."
Could anyone more knowledgeable about these issues enlighten me?
Try and sue Microsoft. In this instance, I would love to see M$ come out on top! :0)
Dear Nintendo. I own0r j00r r0mz.
In a serious twist, isn't a patent to handheld emulation very bad for the developing mobile device industry? If I want to create a development sweet for emulating serious business apps for a MDA, I have to worry about Nintendo?
They endorsed eating hugh mushrooms that made you head flash and your body grow really big to little kids for years! the injustice!
Tod
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Anyway, it would be interesting if the lifespan of a patent depended on whether you were using it in any products you sell. For example, you might have two years to start selling products based on the patent. If you weren't selling any by that time, the patent expires. But if you were, you'd get three extra years to enjoy your monopoly. It would reduce the harmful effect of bad patents, but it would really encourage rolling them out into actual products. And it would all but eliminate "far-off" patents, patents on stuff that won't even be technologically possible two years from now.
Incidentally, the idea - though with bigger numbers - could be extended to apply to copyright as well. If a work goes five years without being generally available, the copyright expires. Otherwise, you get to keep the copyright for as long as you live (but no longer!). If the copyright holder's not an individual, you get, say, 50 years. It'd sure cause some interesting rebranding. Let's say 50 years from now Windows is still alive and kicking. Well, as soon as it hits that magic number, it becomes public domain. So to prevent that, you might release it under a new name every 10 years or so, to "keep it fresh." But of course, five years after you make the switch, the previous incarnation becomes public domain. And I can see some hotshot twentysomething CEO of an incredibly successful startup putting all the copyrights in his name, because he's probably going to live more than 50 years... and he dies in a car crash the next day.
Ah, but this, like the flat tax, is just another interesting idea that will never in a million years be implemented. (Maybe I should patent it just in case.)
Although I congratulate the EFF for doing this, I think that battling against each patent one-by-one is going to be a never-ending losing battle.
We need an overhaul of the patent system (back to how it used to be when it was first put in place)and a halt to the corrupt practices of the patent offices. This can only be done politically, and it can be done if enough of us contact our democratic representatives (many of whom are already trying to stop the illegal, immoral and corrupt practices of patetn offices) [insert insesitive-clod comment here for anyone under a dictatorship].
Also, we need to stop complying with patents that were granted illegally. Too many companies, individuals, projects and organisations comply with clearly illegal patents (because they're scared of getting sued).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Their patent is only about automaticly selecting speedhacks/optimizations depending on which game you run.
Nintendo used their patent only to scare CrimsonFire it doesn't give them any more legal ground to stand on, but I do understand that they backed down anyway.
Even worse is Nintendos Patent about scaling down a NES size (256x240) picture to GBA size (240x160), which they filed in January 2003. PocketNES used the exact same technique in late 2001.
So can someone point to an emulator that automaticly selects speedhacks/optimizations depending on game, that was released before Nintendo filed for the patent?
Maybe all the slashdotters should make it a habit of filing for a new patent each year.
Of course, they will be without merit, will probably be overturned, and will effectively demonstrate that the system is broken because nobody will be able to get their patents through because of the flood of slashdotters patent applications.
Of course, it would be interesting to see how many such slashdot patents actually do get through.
Of course, looking at the uspto.gov web site showed the fee for filing a patent is $385.00 for an individual. What a rackett!!!
I say forget the idea above.
Send $50 to the EFF and cheer them as they take the bastards down.
Of course, a monthly handritten letter to your congressman would be welcomed too.
(does anyone know where to find a good template?)
"Piter, too, is dead."
I understand that some patents are bad and all by why go after Nintendo for patenting something THEY made? I mean they created GBA so they should be allowed to control it everywhere. I usually agree with the EFF but I think they're severly misguided on this one.
They didnt invent emulation or scaling down resolutions though, which is why the EFF is after them.
This isn't for the GBA itself. Read the patent.
IANAL, but...
It apparently says "we own the idea of emulating a handheld on another handheld". Despite the abstract's claim that this is only for Gameboy systems, the patent itself seems to talk about any handheld emulated on any other handheld. That's not good. Oddly enough, the description section makes it sound like Nintendo wants only the highest quality GB emulation if/when it decides to write GB emulators itself for PDA's and cell phones.
I suppose it comes down to what they want to use this patent for. If it's just for going after companies like Crimson Fire and their "Firestorm gbaZ" (blech), I can't say I personally have a problem with that. I have doubts that they'll stop there, though.
First off, the patent itself that Nintendo has is for various techniques to help in emulating a GBA on an underpowered handheld. So, Nintendo doesn't actually have a patent on all GBA emulators.
Now, with that out of the way, why should Nintendo have such a patent? Nothing in Nintendo's patent looks novel. There's already tons of emulators written to operate on underpowered systems. Most the x86 emulators on the Mac dynamically recompile x86 instructions to PPC (or 68k for the older ones). Ideas such as frame skipping or taking advantage of arch specific speed-ups isn't new. The concept and its points aren't new.
But, lets take it a step further, and go to your question about whether Nintendo should be allowed to patent the GBA entirely. If you know much about the GBA, you'd see that the only really new part about the GBA over say the GB is the BIOS, having timers, and having DMAs. More colors and various sprite modes are pretty natural extensions to the GB as a progression into better colors. Timers and DMAs while new to the GB line, aren't particullary ingenious to have on a video console. So the only thing left is the BIOS, but the BIOS is a software work and is copyrighted. There's nothing in the BIOS that's worthy of patent.
So, there doesn't seem to be any reason to go about allowing Nintendo to patent the GBA any more than it would have been to let IBM patent the PS/2 when it came out with its better sound and gfx. If you believe that every time someone comes along and slaps a few components together to make a system they have a right to patent it, then OEMs would end up patenting out every conceivable combination of hardware to lockout competitors.
As far as I'm concerned, Nintendo has no inherent right to being the sole makers of GBAs, be it in hardware or software. So long as someone makes clones of all the copyrighted material, why shouldn't they be able to compete too? Maybe if Nintendo does something novel enough to warrent locking out competitors for *20 years*, then I'll go along with you.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Hear hear!
I'm as much of a Nintendo fanboy as anyone, but I'll be the first admit that the company is not an absolute good. Their behavior during the NES days, bullying retailers to take competetors' products off of shelves, were downright shameful. This has the potential to go down along the same lines.
Ultimately however, software patents are plain-out *broken*. Nintendo could invent the most novel algorithm in the world tomorrow and I'd still stand against a patent for it. (In fact, if it were really novel, a patent preventing other people from reverse engineering it could cause lasting harm to the software industry. Or so I say at least.)
"As far as I'm concerned, Nintendo has no inherent right to being the sole makers of GBAs, be it in hardware or software."
On this I will disagree with you, but I will concede that it is a potentially grey area. It falls in the same area as GM making an exact copy of the Toyota Prius, and calling it a Prius. It is not so much innovation as it is someone else trying to reap the benefit of anothers efforts to the detriment of the originator.
While I dont much care about a hobbiest making an emulator, I would say that no company should be able to make a GBA or GBA emulator for a profit without Nintendo's consent. Nintendo did the R&D on the Gameboy. Nintnedo marketed it and made it popular. Nintendo did all the legwork. Why the hell should another reap the profit from Nintendo's work?
If I make myself a nice big sandwich, I expect to be able to eat it. I would be mighty angry if you ate it. But if you make your own damn sanwhich and eat it, what do I care?
END COMMUNICATION
patent the process of suing a company or business for the intent to make money?
Then anytime someone makes a silly lawsuit, you can sue claiming they're infringing on your patent!!! If they have reasonable cause, you can "give them" permission to sue for money!
Come on, let's get the EFF to apply for this!