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The Reality of Patent Expirations for the NES
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?'"
First Post - sorry, Frist Piss!
So many sleepless nights...
Moreover, is it now FINALLY legal for me to download and use nintendo ROMs?
How many NES consoles did they sell? How much money could Nintendo possibly lose from clone NES systems?
If anything, the title familiarity may help them in selling similar titles/lines for Gamecube and Revolution.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
I for one welcome our cloned Overlords.
See Digg.com--where Slashdot gets all its news now. It's like traveling into the future to see Slashdot's stories days from now! But with WAY more each hour, and you vote on what gets posted. According to Alexa.com, Digg will be overtaking Slashdot's traffic within the month.
This place is dead. Corporate-owned, jammed with banner ads, and run by incompetent editors who don't give a CRAP about your input and are two busy posting whiney editorials about getting their nickname taken away in World of Warcraft and expecting preferential treatment because he's CmdrTaco of Slashdot, darnit. Ha, yeah, subscribers know what I'm talking about--try emailing them about a dupe sometime before it hits the front page.
It's time to move on to bigger and better things. Digg looks like it.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I would kind of like to see what people could do if they were allowed to build their own version of the NES. There would be all sorts of cool addons, like Bluetooth controllers and maybe even a portable version.
The software side would be the real leagl issue. Could people repackage Mario Brothers and do whatever they wanted with our favorite plumber?
ikari warriors...
just a few nostalgic games that inspired me into the gaming industry
I've seen so many NES knock off "100 in one" game things selling on ebay and in other small video game shops for a long time now. If it is indeed legal for people to make and sell NES like machines now, I wonder what would happen with those. Would they start selling in well known shops?
How much money could Nintendo possibly lose from clone NES systems?
IIRC, Nintendo makes quite a lot of money on their old licenses. Besides the versions they put out for their portable consoles, I believe the Revolution is going to have a sort of classic-gaming-on-demand system in place. They likely want people to pay for their new stuff instead of picking up an old NES or clone console and Nintendo not seeing a dime.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And with most ppl who are still interested in the original NES being aware of roms and emulators it's hard to see to much profiteering at nintendo's expense, not gonna put em in the grave. though speaking of clones it reminds me of that christian game company selling unlicensed cartridges that nintendo wouldn't sue because of fear of bad publicity.
Walk into about any mall these days and you will find these really cheap knock-off's of a Play Station design that can play thousands of games. I played Mario Brothers on one. I thought it was just a small operating down here until I went up north and found the same thing, and a bit more funny (side note), they're Colombian. All of them! :o
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Y
Why should -any- restrictions last beyond the period of time that Nintendo is actively manufacturing and selling the system and/or games for it? What "incentive to create" would Nintendo lose if someone did make clones of an old, obsolete system that stopped making them money over a decade ago? TFA talked about "being aware of comprehensive protections" or some garbage like that-I'd say the more important advice is "learn when to let go." And since that's apparently not possible, the law needs to change.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Isn't the justification used for these IP protections that they foster innovation and business? How can outlawing compatible consoles for a FULL CENTURY after production ceases possibly be construed as fostering innovation or business?
Even if it is okay to sell/make clones of the NES hardware, the actual games themselves (well...most of them) are still protected by copyright(s). The NES came out in the 80s, and copyrights last at least 30 years. I don't see any Transformers yet, so I don't see the games themselves out of copyright yet. Time to pull out my electronics tools.
P.S. Overly critical guy: You're not critical. You're flamebait.
I had a lot of trouble in QM. Now I know why all this IP stuff confuses me too. I guess the new expression is "It doesn't take a IP lawyer" rather than "It doesn't take a rocket scientist" SIGH.
Sola Deo Gloria!
I like digg, but its certainly not where /. gets all of its stories. Note that the sheer number of stories that digg has means that there is a lot more noise to filter out.
/. does.
Plus, not being able to post in a threaded manner makes any sort of discussion there completely pointless (as opposed to here being perhaps pointless.)
Dude... CmdrTaco has a blog. You'll be able to find it here: http://slashdot.org/
That just might be why he expects "preferential treatment."
FYI, it looks like digg might go to ad-based revenue shortly, so start your whining about it there as well.
And digg has just as many, if not MORE, dupes as
Digg is cool, and has its pros - but look at the cons and it certainly isn't superior, just an alternative.
Wait a minute - they're saying that a patent received in 1995 could apply to a product that was created in 1985. It took a long time for that patent to be processed by the USPTO.
I also suspect that the 10NES cartridge authentication system is not additionally a console authentication system: the clone NES consoles shouldn't need to verify that the cartridges are authentic to get them to work.
That leaves it up to trademarks, which I'm sure that it's not to hard work around. You could say that your console "plays games which are designed for the Nintendo Entertainment System (a trademark of Nintendo of America."
As always, IANAL, though, so take these words with a grain of salt.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
The patents on the physical, hardware components of the Nintendo may have expired, but the code programmed into the various ROM's both in the console and in games is protected by international copyright. Those copyrights won't expire within most of our lifetimes, so I think it's safe to say that the "true" NES is protected. Whether or not the hardware could successfully be reverse engineered to yield the secrets of the system's operation for later use with completely new software remains to be seen. Still, though, if any of the original NES's code were reused or even used as an example for a new OS for the NES, Nintendo would have a good argument against whoever was duplicating their systems with regard to copyright rules.
With my USB controller, my laptop is already a portable NES.
Just because the patent expired I'm sure there are plenty of copyrights out there to protect the system. However in any case what is the harm to nintendo if they do make consoles? I don't think that they would sell well considering what new stuff is coming on the market, and those that are interested in the Classic games would rather own the original system in my opinion.
If they could clone an IBM, why can't people clone nintendo?
I've seen the Polystation and similar systems pictured in TFA at one of the souvenir shops at Penn Station in New York, as well as in some of the electronics shops on 8th avenue. For about $50 bucks you get about 100 games built in, so it's a good deal. A friend of mine has an NES clone built into a clone of an N64 controller that outputs to the TV...it also includes an extra controller and light gun that plugs into the main controller, along with 100 or so games. For $35, I bought a Yobo NES clone at the local flea market. You can get the Japanese version from Lik-Sang for USD60. No built-in games, but I don't mind staying partially honest and picking up some old carts for $3-$5 a pop.
Of course, the best part about the NES knock-offs is the hilarious the packaging. "Best Quality" "Super Graphics" "Super 8-Bit Technology"...usually spelled wrong, and abound the box. One particular box had Spider-Man 2 promotional movie graphics and the device was labelled as Spider Game. Infringing upon Nintendo and Marvel IP...now that's some balls!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Out of curiosity, what would be the legal ramifications behind selling repairs of old consoles? And how far can you go and consider it still a repair and not a new console? If the controller ports are busted and you replace them with your own components? The logic board, the power supply? All of the electronics, but keeping the external frame? Why can't you replace the external frame with your own design? Wouldn't selling refurbished things like this be legal? I mean, how much can you replace and still consider it a repair or a refurbishing? Everything that is broken, right? And what's wrong with adding your own modifications, such as wireless controllers and updated video out? How is that different than what Messiah is doing, other than they probably didn't start out with one dead NES for their new ones?
Because Phoenix (remember Phoenix BIOS ??)went and legally reverse engineered the BIOS, and licensed them, and Michael Dell and that pony-tailed Gateway2000 guy made a lot of money and hired a lot of smooth talking lawyers.
Evil Overlord Rule #86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
Try 4chan.org :D
The most honest discussions ever
I could definitely see Ron Jeremy as Mario... in fact, the similarites are uncanny.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
He sold it long ago. It is not his personal plaything anymore. VA Software/OSDN/WhatEver owns it now.
Good point about this helping to market current versions of Zelda, Mario, etc.
I also think there's a big opportunity for Nintendo to pre-emptively turn this into a cash cow. If they release their OWN "clone" system, they could clean up. They could put together a $35 bundle that had 2 controllers, a small hard drive that had all original Nintendo games, and beat the clone makers at their own game. Even if it was just all games Nintendo made, what gamer geek wouldn't see that as an attractive investment? (In fact, since so many companies that made Nintendo games are now out of business, you could probably put a fair amount of abandonware on there, too.)
I know I'd rather buy a cheap Nintendo box from, well... Nintendo than one marked "Best Quality Nintendo Wish Set" at the local flea market.
This will never happen, of course. They're more likely to re-introduce the original Nintendo at $99 and re-release all the games for $39.99, like 1988 all over again. Too bad.
On a sidenote:
TFA mentions that executives of companies can be held personally liable in cases of copyright infridgement (prison!). If that is true and if it can indeed be shown that Sony's CD contains LGPL code from LAME, then they have gotten themselfes into deeeeeep sh*t (although I doubt that anything that drastic would happen).
while the NES patents are about to expire in 2013, we already got emulators for the GBA, and in-the-works for the DS.
Just a thought.
Producing a binary-compatiable console that is hardware-compatiable to the NES should (by anything remotely approaching fair and civilized rights) be legal, especially as Nintendo would still be making money off all the things they still make money from. However, the US is dubious on both counts, so don't count on it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It'll be a a cold day in hell when executives are charged with infridgement!
Simple, the longer you can play Mario and Zelda on NES, the less you are tempted to play a new version or Mario or Zelda on Super NES, N64, GameCube, or Revolution. If your NES breaks, instead of buying a clone, you have to buy the latest and greatest. If you buy the latest and greatest, quite often you have to buy all new games. That's changing with the revolution which has promised backward compatibility with Gamecube, and PS2 is backward compatible with PS1. But Gamecube isn't anywhere near compatible with NES of course.
Like all technology companies, they are simply protecting their upgrade revenue stream.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
A clone NES would only get you the ability to play old carts. At this point, very few people would bother to buy a cloNES, and also buy a bunch of used carts to play. Thus, the impact on selling downloads of the old games should be negligible. Most of the people who already have a collection of NES games already have an NES, or could get one used fairly easily.
I dunno... in a few years maybe. Look at the Atari Flashback. It's up to a 2.0 with more games... (granted the 2600 is much older, but the point being, there's some market, however small for nostalgia gaming....)
And as the system gets older and older, perhaps the nostalgia crowd will want an NES like they did the old 2600. (The NES being very popular as well..)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
They already have. It is called the Classic Series for the GBA. They make a lot of money there. They will also have all those games for free to download on the Revolution. So there is good money in it for them to hold that stuff as their own.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
And here we have fake "DVD" that are really Video-CD only and also plays nes games.
However only people who don't know the difference buy them, to find later that it doesn't play DVDs.
And there are several playstation clones.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
And that is the business rationale for perpetual copyright: If Ron Howard's The Grinch is the *ONLY* movie you can legally watch this Christmas, then innovators like the estate of Dr. Seuss will be well rewarded. Woo.
Yes, I know you aren't advocating perpetual patents for the good of Nintendo.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
The Revolution will be able to play NES games (as well as SNES and Gamecube, N64 too but who really cares?). NES ROMs exist all over the place. So you can play the games (and other systems) on one system (no more daisy chains of RF adapters!), assuming Nintendo makes it easy and cheap to download them to the system, legally and on your television... or you can download them illegally (no judgment; I have quite a few ROMs), and play them on just about anything.
I wouldn't buy a knock-off unless it combined more systems. The NES alone isn't worth paying more than the cost of a used NES. I loved a lot of the games, grew up with them, but really. I'm not a huge Nintendo fanboy and I don't have loyalty to them. I just don't care. Why buy some made-in-Taiwan crap version of something you can get for free or (hopefully) play in an officially supported capacity?
Now, if someone makes a knock-off that plays *any* cartridge based system and had a great controller or supported a variety of controllers, I'd be willing to pay out the nose for it. Just so I could have ONE system hooked up and still play old games. But having decent controllers is a must; Pac-man is more fun with a joystick, but not so much for Mario Brothers.
Given Nintendo's announced plan's for a Revolution download service for older Nintendo games, I would say that is a big yes.
On another point, I went to a major mall in the Phoenix area and saw a retailer selling the Power Player Super Joy III Emulator. I was quite shocked to see such a blatant case of copyright infringement at a major retail center, and I plan to notify Nintendo's piracy center because it ticks me off that someone is making money by ripping Nintendo off.
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WARNING:Slashdot karma not redeemable in the afterlife.
I guess they would have their assets frozen as well.
liqbase
The vast, vast, vast majority of non-functioning NES systems have nothing wrong with them except worn-out connectors. The ones you can get on eBay today are much more solid and long-lasting than the ones that were in the system originally.
Come on. The article was written for wide public consumption by a lawyer, who makes his living giving advice for big bucks, and can be held liable for bad advice for equally big bucks. Realistically, is there any chance at all he'd come right out and publish a direct answer to the extremely interesting question of whether a specific clone system would be legal? When that's a question he can make large amounts of money answering privately?
Ha ha. What he's done, basically, is give a long-winded "it depends" while strongly implying that anyone who even thinks about getting into this business should begin by hiring a top-notch IP lawyer, such as his own humble self. Golly, what a surprise.
That article took an entire page to say nothing. Only the dumbest noob would not know about trademarks, patents and copyrights. The article answered nothing.
Really lame.
Or, pay $50 for one of those shady "700 in 1" TV games, and note that the cartridge port on the back is a Famicom cartridge port. IIRC, Lik-Sang sells adaptors to run NES games on a Famicom (or a Famiclone in this case).
"I plan to notify Nintendo's piracy center because it ticks me off that someone is making money by ripping Nintendo off."
Oh please. How about actually doing something useful for society instead? Give blood, write your congressman about how unfair DRM is, adopt a highway, volunteer to help the less fortunate this Thanksgiving, etc.
Writing letters to rat on some retailer who actually provides jobs for people in your area so some multi-billion dollar company can collect a few bucks and also enforce the idea that IP lasts forever is about the last thing you should be doing. If your so insistant on doing something for nintendo how about you look up actual coders and people who made the artwork for those old games and send them a few bucks. At least then your heart would be in the right place.
IP will be the downfall of society as we know it.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
and so begins the clone wars
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
No more than it's legal for you to walk into an antique shop and take whatever you want. Any patents are long gone on that stuff.
They will lose money off the hardware sales of cloned systems if they are trying to integrate a classic gaming interface in their new system.
Yes, the basic idea in the story is only about their old hardware, but you don't need an imagination to see the money.
If I have a ton of legal roms laying around, and CompanyA makes a clone console for $20, and CompanyN makes a new console that plays everything under the sun, plus my old legal roms, but charges $300, which will I buy. That depends on if I want to play new stuff or just my old stuff. If the clone machine exists, and I am not really into new games, then the $20 clone is in my living room without a second thought. If it isn't available to me, I will be more inclined to buy the new system. They haven't forced me to buy it, mind you, and they know I probably won't. But if there is a $20 alternative, I definitely won't.
Now, actually using some imagination, I can take that a step further. Now I might be inclinde to buy new games. I have the new system, I might as well buy some games for it to see how much better it is.
This won't happen a lot, but if it happens more than it costs to keep people from cloning the NES, then it is worth it. How many 35+ people have old NES cartridges, and have no inclination to buy a new console.
i mean they sell old nintendo games on the gameboy, have a nes controller gameboy, they love to rehash old products in new wrapping. why not just sell old school nes clones. find a way to sell the old games through some medium. they should have done this with the 2oth anniverary recently. a limited run in their factories. god knows everyone would buy one for a decent price.
Gamestop doesn't seem to think that it's gonna be a problem...
Messiah Generation NEX System
Saw it on the christmas list in egm. Their website is: playmessiah
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha .
Let me guess - you're American, correct? Hehehehehehehehe.
Personally I don't think I could deal with Ikari Warriors without the independent aim-and-move the arcade provided with the twist-stick...
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Sounds simple to me. Make a box with a dual hardware interface: CF card and Cart.
If you have old carts, go at it. If not DL them ala iTunes onto a CF card and play them on your console. 99c a game for old games is cheap enough that people might pay it (or if you're scared of piracy, scramble the DL roms and make the CF socket require scrambled roms). Give a fair cut to nintendo as a licencing fee and they likely will go along with you on the venture. In this case playing nice is good, because even if you are legally "in the right" you don't want a long court case (costs $$$) and an injunction (prevents you from getting $$$).
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Comments like these just go to show how effect the powers that be (e.g., corporations, government) have been at confusing the issue of so-called “intellectual property” with people. This fundamentally makes people less informed and more vulnerable to abuses of patents, copyrights, and trademarks. For example, this reality distortion could easily cause a lay-person to think that if something is patented, they cannot copy it (which is entirely false).
Better writings exist on this particular topic than I could hope to produce here, so I'll leave further exploration as an exercise to the reader.
Join Tor today!
Copyright and patent laws were intended to protect someone's intellect, and to allow for works to eventually enter the public domain, ideally to benefit society as a whole once the inventer/creator has made some cash off their idea (IMHO... I'm sure that there's some /. lawyer wannabe getting ready to challenge my definition somewhere).
But nothing really happens this way anymore it seems. Nowadays, when the public is supposed to see some benefits from something entering the public domain, the big, money hungry companies just find some greedy, two-faced politician who's willing to sell out the people who elected them for some easy cash, and they extend protections, and enact new laws to prevent people from getting what they're legally entitled to.
And it's sad actually... Do you think that when the cpoyright laws were put into place, the lawmakers were thinking planning for this to happen? If so, then why set a duration in the first place?
Actually, the fact that they did enact patent laws to protect the little guys (never mind that it's the guys with the money to twist the laws who are reaping all the protection these days), and they did set terms on copyright shows that at one time, politicians and lawmakers were there for the benefit of the people. Nowadays, it's only millionares(sp?) who get elected, largely due to they're having more money, which gives them more visibility. The laws are now so twisted and full of holes that they're totally meaningless.
And I've seen some arguments in favor of laws extending copyright, and granting new rights to content owners, wherein it's argued that the original types of copyright, and patent laws aren't meaningful anyway, as the people who wrote them couldn't have envisioned what technology would bring to the world, but I think that's fucking insane! This is essentially saying that people who were smart enough to found and develop countries, who studied law, and who developed the world in which we live had no vision, or sense of the future? That's crazy talk...
And this Nintendo thing's a great example of the problem: They made lots of money off the NES, knowing all the while that the patent laws would eventually expire, allowing anyone to build an NES machine, and now that they have (or are, as the case seems to be), they're suddenly saying "but, but, but..." as they see that people still are interested in this technology.
I think it's about time that the laws started working for the people again, and those who try to circumvent these laws should be held accountable for violating them. Copyright limits were not put into effect just so that some wealthy, never-worked-a-day-in-their-lives people, who've inherited millions from their ancestors inventions, can use some of that money to keep you and I from getting what we're entitled to.
But me ranting on my virtual soap box isn't going to change anything, and the population as a whole is too wrapped up in their reality TV, and Paris "Dog face" Hilton sexcapades to realize what they're losing out on. It's just so depressing where we as a society have let ourselves be led to. And the whole while, those passing the laws continue to claim that they're doing so for our best interests.
George Carlin said it best in last weekends HBO special (and more people should watch it, and listen to what he's saying!): "They (the politicians) don't care about you. They don't." It's up to we, the people, to dig us out of the mess that we've let others make of our legal system.
Ok... I'm done. the soapbox is free for someone else to rant on. I'm off to download all the NES Roms I can get my hands on! 8)
All intellectual property protection boils down to the same thing: asserting ownership over a number, or a set of numbers. To claim ownership over an intangible is absurd.
an exceedingly important addition, thank you
The term of a century for copyright law is chosen more or less just to correspond to the artist's lifetime.
i es'_copyright_length">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /List_of_countries'_copyright_length
That may well have been the intention from the start, but the length is now a lifetime PLUS 70 years: a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countr
There is now dispute wether current copyright will ever expire, since the media companies like Disney seem to extend the period when the next deadline is coming up.. The company then manage to rip off every folklore and everything in the public domain they can get their hands on, but never give anything back to the public domain, as was the entire intention behind both copyright and patent-laws..
Patent law is limited to about 20 years, that being the time it's considered "fair" to let you dominate the market for your invention. After that, the generics come, and you better have moved on to something new.
20 years to stifle the market. 20 years of software is ancient news. What software are you using that is 20 years old, except the RSA-algorithm, which was indeed patented..
I'm not cynical, but you need to present the correct facts.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
a system that only played nes carts would be of somewhat limited marketability.
Oh really? What makes you think that?
nes knockoffs bundled with a huge rom full of nes games will be as illegal as ever.
Not if the "huge rom full of nes games" is actually "The Best of PDROMS.de". There's a project going on over at nesdev.com called "Garage Cart" to do just that, and I'm contributing a tetramino game.
I also suspect that the 10NES cartridge authentication system is not additionally a console authentication system: the clone NES consoles shouldn't need to verify that the cartridges are authentic to get them to work.
In fact, the top-loading version of the NES doesn't contain the lockout chip at all; it just leaves the lockout chip data pins unconnected.
The Super NES, on the other hand, did use the lockout chip in both directions in some cases. Games using the SA-1 chip (Super Mario RPG; Kirby Super Star) wouldn't start the coprocessor unless the cart detected that the Super NES's lockout chip was authentic and for the correct region.
there is already a company bringing an NES clone to market right away here, and it's supposed to have 100% compatibility with both the NES and the Famicom.
If it's the "Generation NEX", then the claims are BS.
How many NES consoles did they sell? How much money could Nintendo possibly lose from clone NES systems?
If anything, the title familiarity may help them in selling similar titles/lines for Gamecube and Revolution.
Isn't the Revolution supposed to be backward compatable with all the previous consoles?
Hmm, the name sounds familiar...where has Slashdot heard that name before?
:) .
BTW - although I'm sure they just meant it as an example, the "10NES" copyright case would have no bearing on developing your own clone console, unless you were specifically designing said console to reject unlicensed cartridges as the actual NES did. The CIC chips on the cartridges authenticate the cart to an official NES, but have no internal connection to the ROMs - failure of the console to implement the authentication would have no effect on playability (you can verify this by cutting the clock pin to the CIC chip in the console*...and play unlicensed carts
*ironically, this is the same method used in many of the CueCat hacks.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
One thing: old video game systems will increasingly become difficult to hook up to your TV, since they often don't have a straight video+audio output
The frontloading NES has two RCA jacks on the side, one for mono audio and one for composite video.
(or if you're scared of piracy, scramble the DL roms and make the CF socket require scrambled roms)
If it can't easily be cracked to run freeware and free software available from pdroms.de, then the homebrew community will shun the device and stick to Nintendulator.
This brings me back to the good old days of swaying people from one BBS to another...
The NES console does not have any ROMs in it. (Neither does a Super NES, except for a 64-byte mask ROM which is used to boot its SPC700 sound chip). As such, you could build an emulator or replacement console for the NES without infringing any *copyrights*. All you're doing is emulating the behaviour of some custom hardware chips.
However, it would have to play the game cartridges in their original form, or you (or your customers) would run afoul of copyright law when using the ROM data in the cartridges. And of course as mentioned in the TFA, you do have patents and trademarks to worry about.
Agreed 110%. The comments are far more valuable than any of the stories.
It is more about the "Nintendo" name (and its derivatives) than about the hardware. Unlike patents (which cover hardware), a trademark has to be enforced in order to remain valid. If people started making "NES clones" all around and Nintendo didn't do anything about it, they would lose the trademark on "Nintendo", which would be a very, very bad thing for them.
Trademark law forces them to prevent people from using their name for making clones and roms.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Copyright is ownership of a specific number.
Patents are ownership of a certain class of numbers *.
But trademarks are something else entirely. Their true use is fraud and libel prevention - you can't go around using someone else's name to sell your product or bash your competitors'.
Of course, there have been many recent abuses of trademark law, but at least trademark law has a foundation in reality. I don't see a problem with making a NES clone, but I do have a problem with calling it a NES.
* Or equivalently, a formula used to generate a class of numbers.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
heh you said a system that can play all old games. its called a modded xbox it can play anything from atri to n64 and ps1. snes nes it does it all brother. even a dreamcast emu is in the works. i relly wanna see what the modders do to the 360. couse they pimped the xbox big time. yes i have one yes i have emus yes its modded. but i still have a nice stack of games i bought and buy. pises me off thow sence i am a modder im labled a piret even thow my system contanes all homebrew or emus of old stuff. but then again i do own most of the roms i have on my xbox it just beats pulling out my old systems to play them sence the xbox does a dam good job on almost every game.
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5,426,762 -- "System for determining a truth of software in an information processing apparatus".
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5,207,426 -- "Controller for a game machine".
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5,070,479 -- "External memory having an authenticating processor and method of operating same".
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4,799,635 -- "System for determining authenticity of an external memory used in an information processing apparatus".
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4,687,200 -- "Multi-directional switch"
None of those would ever have interfered with building an emulator.That's the lockout system for non-Nintendo game cartridges. You don't want to include that in an emulator. Expires January 24, 2006, anyway.
Covers the physical design of the game controller. Irrelevant for an emulator.
More lockout system stuff. Expires January 24, 2006, anyway.
Still more lockout stuff. Appears to expire December 23, 2005.
This is about how to make a cheap four-direction arrow key switch.
The design patents cover the "ornamental design" of the case and cartridge. They're irrelevant to an emulator.
The copyright issues are a separate problem, and probably a bigger one.
Of course, the scary aspect to the "new" legal situation is just how easy (and dangerous under the DMCA&friends) it has become to infringe the "right" of someone('s heirs) who can wield such powers, for almost a century, without even having been required to make a deliberate effort to protect (and keep publishing) one's works in the first place.
dunno about the US tho'.
The thing about expired patents on the console itself is that there is not longer any reason that homebrew developers couldn't distribute their own games on the bloody thing - something they won't be able to do on the revolution.
:P
Sure, the NES isn't exactly a powerhouse, but get some old roms together (smb3?) with some blanks and you might be able to get the kids interested in homebrew. Either that or you can just faff around yourself
You are thinking too literally, too small. Sure you can go buy an NES today, but how many actually still exist. Sure you can buy adapters, but they are going to become increasingly hard to find. No one is still producing NES originals. There is a finite number of antiquated machines. If someone was to start cloning those, then they are no longer finite. And might there be any benefit to produce a clone with current video output?
The whole idea is that Nintendo has something to possibly fear. If they can get even a small gain in new system sales by keeping these clones at bay, they are better off finacially. This isn't about what will obviously happen, it is about what might happen, and what benefits the company financially.
Too summarize, there is no benefit to Nintendo to allow clones. There might be a benefit to not allow them. If the potential benefit to Nintendo outways the cost to fight them, then they will probably fight.
There is real money concerns, that is a given. How much of a real threat is the question.
How can there be patents on NES hardware dated after 1985 (1984 in japan, etc.) when the hardware was released? If they release the hardware in 1985 and try to patent something in it in 1988 or 1995, haven't they violated a statute of limitations or something? If there is no law against this, then it seems like an excellent way to get around the time limit on patents. Every time your patent on something your company made a long time ago is about to expire, just file for a bunch of newly reworded patents on the same old stuff. The way the patent office (at least in the US) is these days, at least a couple of them will be granted. Voila: eternal patents.
Seriously though; isn't there some kind of limitation on this?
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
Seriously, the article is a bad joke propagated from the same Asshat "IP" pimps who represented Digital Convergence in their insane attempts to redefine 'innovation' to include XOR and MIME64 encoding in the CueCat: fiasco. Still have their hilariously vague Cease and Desist letter. I told em to either FOAD or actually file charges. At least they were bright enough to fold instead of call because I wasn't bluffing.
Sorry, no patent granted in 1995 could possibly be relevent. The NES itself would be more than sufficent prior art to invalidate it should they try to claim it applies to any of it's technology.
And maybe I'm wrong, but didn't Atari WIN vs Nintendo over their attempts to use a dependence of a trademarked phrase in their carts to outlaw 3rd party titles? I know history is being rewritten a lot lately so maybe I need to get the latest point revision installed into my brain or something.
They were correct though that regardless of right, wrong, legal or illegal that Nintendo would likely sue any small outfit attempting a clone into oblivion. And since I don't see enough profit to interest a larger one that pretty much wraps it up for clones.
Democrat delenda est
What about DMCA, though?
the left-wing slant
Just because something isn't right-wing doesn't make it left-wing. See their arguments on the "biased liberal media" for an example.
>Personally I don't think I could deal with Ikari Warriors without the independent aim-and-move the arcade provided with the twist-stick...
Then I bet you'll love Ikari Warriors on the X-Box running MAME. I find the triggers are a good substitution for the old twist-stick.
My $0.05 (keep the change),
T
Since you are collecting them...
Your a bleepin' SEGA Fanboy.
There you go. You will eventually be a Fanboy of all game systems.