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Nintendo Patents Insanity

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke dept.

theodp writes "Nintendo scored a patent Tuesday for a Sanity system for video game, which covers causing a game character to hallucinate - e.g., see bleeding walls and hear maniacal laughter - as its sanity decreases in response to encountering a creature or gruesome situation."

14 of 553 comments (clear)

  1. Prior Art? by lilmouse · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anyone played Doom while on LSD?

    --LWM

    1. Re:Prior Art? by Asprin · · Score: 4, Funny


      I had a friend in grad school (physics) who noted from personal experience that Sonic The Hedgehog was "invariant under LSD transformation".

      --
      "Lawyers are for sucks."
      - Doug McKenzie
    2. Re:Prior Art? by ShortSpecialBus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Have you ever looked at the back of a $20 dollar bill??

      On Weed????

      --
      //FIXME: Bad .sig
  2. first post by mofag · · Score: 4, Funny

    does that mean my boss needs to pay Nintendo?

  3. Obvious by avgjoe62 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Isn't this patently obvious? How can one patent something so unoriginal? Besides, my in-laws are prime examples of prior art...

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    How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

  4. Re:Eternal Darkness? by waynelorentz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who knew Nintendo and Apple had so much in common?

    --
    World's tallest building rises in the desert
  5. Sanity Patent Insane by gkozlyk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does this mean the USPTO could be sued by Nintendo in the future for all these ridiculous software patents.

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  6. As a devout Marxist would say.... by ValhallaOne · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can't fool me....there ain't no Sanity Clause...

  7. Makes Sense by burtdub · · Score: 4, Funny

    InsanityTM is the only way to describe their business plan over the past ten years, be it the Donkey Congas, the Mario Party series, or the N64 game system.

  8. Re:Patent Sanity? by MarkGriz · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's insane.

    Seriously, how can this type of patent not get laughed out of the office?

    Agreed.

    It's patently insane.

    --
    Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
  9. Or nethack :) by Rei · · Score: 5, Funny

    Prior Art

    Quaff what? [elr or *] r
    Wow! Everything seems so cosmic now!
    You hear the quarterback calling the play.
    You hear Nieman and Marcus arguing.
    You hear Doctor Doolittle!
    You hear bees in your (nonexistant) bonnet!
    The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal bites!
    You hit the samurai rabbit.
    The Christmas-tree monster bites!
    Open what? [fGi or *] f
    The Barney the Dinosaur bites!
    The Totoro bites!
    The rodent of unusual size bites!
    The tin contains sauteed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Eat? [yn] y
    You consume sauteed cockatrice.
    You die...

    Do you want your posessions identified? [yn]

    --
    Rock Us, Dukakis.
  10. great... by ate50eggs · · Score: 4, Funny

    it's hard enough maintaining my sanity without a licencing fee.

    --
    not everything is a science experiment!
  11. Easy: by abb3w · · Score: 5, Funny
    I wonder of the writers/copyright holders of Call of Cthulhu would say to that.

    Cthulhu fhtagn, Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

    OK, unleashing the Old Ones to devour your competitors is a little unscrupulous, but at least it's not unleashing lawyers.

    (And yeah, there's some prior art in Angband and other roguelikes, but I think it's more binary (off/on) than progressive in effect. There might be some substance to the patent.)

    --
    //Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
  12. Re:Possible prior art: nethack and falconseye by saddino · · Score: 4, Funny


    No. Patent Name
    1 6,935,954 Nintendo-Patent [max 1] died in the USPTO. Killed by Prior Art.