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."

Comments

Re:Nintendo made the GBA so why can't they patent

[Anonymous Coward]

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.