The Reality of Patent Expirations for the NES

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 11, 2005 @10:12AM from the not-getting-any-younger dept.

Tashimojo writes "Gamasutra's running a feature entitled 'Nintendo Entertainment System - Expired Patents Do Not Mean Expired Protection', an interesting read. From the article: 'This article originated when the Gamasutra editors noticed a number of online sources such as Wikipedia stating that it was now completely legal to make NES 'clone' consoles, because all of Nintendo's patents regarding the NES had expired. How true was this statement? We asked game IP lawyer S. Gregory Boyd the question: Are the NES patents expired? If so, is a company free to build and sell new NES-like systems?'"

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Re:ROMs? by MichaelKaiserProScri · 2005-11-11 10:27 · Score: 5, Informative

Well, no. But you COULD play your legally purchased Nintendo cartriges on a no name clone of the Nintendo console, provided that the console did not call itself a "Nintendo", "Nintendo clone", "NES", or "NES clone". The terms "Nintendo", "Nintendo Entertainment System", and "NES" are trademarked. Nintendo could potentially sue over the use of these terms. But the hardware itself is generic.