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Nintendo Awarded Patent for Instant Messaging
Zwzo writes "Nintendo has been awarded a patent for a video game messaging service that utilizes a buddy list and can display information about game activities and user status." From the article: "Initially filed in 2000, a year before the release of Microsoft's Xbox and two years before the official launch of Microsoft's Xbox Live Internet service, Nintendo's patent is relatively broad and could potentially lead to litigation against other major players in the game console market. Although the text of the patent itself refers to the Nintendo64 and Game Boy Color by name, some have speculated that this patent could portend an instant messaging system for the Wii."
As long as they don't weild it as a patent troll I will just mind my own business. Hopefully they have better things to do than use it against competitors.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
But the question is: Did they file this patent so they could sue the pants off Microsoft et al. Or, did they file the patent just for protection against a suit?
If you read the TFA it would point out that this is geared toward an integrated messaging/email/game_status system with a serious gaming bent.
It's also specifically geared for consoles, so even stuff like X-fire wouldn't fall under it.
X-box live is really the only similar thing, and the patent was actually filed for 2 years before Live's official release.
Finally, when has the US Patent Office really cared about prior art?
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
- Nintendo does not have a patent on instant messaging. Nintendo has a patent on an instant messaging product. Some or all other instant messaging and/or game instant messaging products will not infringe on Nintendo's patent.
- Nintendo patents pretty much everything they do, every platform product they develop-- even if, as with the N64. This doesn't mean they intend to use the patent. It just means they wanted a patent. Nintendo owns patents on gobs and gobs of different things, but to my knowledge they've never used one against a competing video game system, ever. Nintendo patents stuff because they just don't want someone in thailand to make an N64 clone using Nintendo's circuit boards or whatever.
- The patent is from 2000. If this patent were anything but paperwork to Nintendo, they could have done something with it by now. The people at Nintendo probably barely even remember filing it. This patent tells us what some people inside Nintendo were thinking around 2000. It's interesting because it tells us that a few years ago, when Nintendo looked at XBox Live and said consumers didn't want it, Nintendo wasn't just posturing because they were annoyed Microsoft had thought of it first-- they'd actually thought out an online service and then decided the market wasn't ready for it yet. But besides Nintendo's circa-2000 mindset, the granting of this patent doesn't tell us anything else.
This article is stupid, and you're stupid if you took it seriously.Next they'll patent "fun".
That would be ok, no other console producing company seems interested in this invention.
So it applies specifically to the N64 and Game Boy Color... but it could lead to litigation?
Can someone explain to me how this isn't just Ars Technica stirring the pot?
The actual patent claims don't mention the systems by name, but the background info uses the systems as examples of systems the technology might be used in. The patent is for anything, not just those two systems.
Since the Wii will have two USB ports, what makes you think you won't be able to plug in a USB keyboard, or that there won't be a custom keyboard released at some point?
Personally, I wouldn't be suprised if things involved the DS connectivity at some point as well, maybe letting you use the DS touchscreen along with handwriting recognition to enter text.
Companies like Valve have used instant messenger in their games (Steam --> Friends)
According to the summary the Nintendo patient was filed in 2000. The first public release of Steam was in 2002. I'm not sure exactly when messaging was added to steam, but it wasn't in the first release, so that is over two years between Nintendo's patient and Valve having such a feature (at least claiming to have such a feature, I sure as hell have never gotten it to work).
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
For some of the nitty gritty first, they filed a provisional application on May 31, 2000, which means they have priority to this date. It is also important to remember with the current patent laws in the US the system is based on a first to invent, which means any prior art could have to pre-date the May 31, 2000 date as well.
I have one grand problem with the arstechnica article. It is in the very end, where the author says:
Unfortunately, this does not fly in any countries patent system. This argument is good for trade secrets, where independently inventing a similar or the same item is okay. In patents, whether or not someone invented something similar while you were waiting for you patent is immaterial. Also, the application would've been published no later then May or so of 2002, meaning any technology after that date could easily see the claims and know what Nintendo was seeking a patent for.
I seriously doubt Nintendo will go sue happy with this, but they may hold onto it just in case their console market goes south like Sega's did. Remember, they wouldn't really be trolling if they actually did make a real attempt to implement a system using the patent they received.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
If I were them, I would use it to trade rights with MS, as MS recently obtained a patent on filtering voice chat to bleep out unwanted terms. Nintendo being family oriented (and the Wii almost certainly deploying some type of voice chat--as well as the DS at some point in the future) the rights to implement similar technology is invaluable to Nintendo. They should just make an agreement with MS to not sue each other over their respective patents in this area (and then they can both sue Sony when Sony implements the same thing). As a side note, X-fire wouldn't be threatened by the patent as X-fire is not for video game consoles, just PCs.
Read my blog posts on usability.
The Xbox360 has 2 USB ports, can you just hook a keyboard up to it?
I am being serious, I just want to know.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes the latest update was supposed to add support for USB keyboards to make typing a little less a pain in the ass.
A better analogy might be this: You find out that the hungarian army has weapons.
Holy crud! The Hungarian army has weapons? They could use those weapons to kill us!
Except wait, a couple of questions immediately come to mind.
- Wait, what kind of weapons? Are they guns? Pitchforks? Atom bombs? Stun tasers? Are these even the kind of weapons that you could kill somebody with?
- Wait, why is this a surprise? Wouldn't one assume the Hungarian army has weapons? I mean, having weapons is kind of something that armies tend to do.
- Why exactly do we think the Hungarian army is going to do anything with these weapons? Has Hungary even done anything in the last 50 years? Don't they just kind of sit around and like... I don't know, drink beer or whatever it is Hungarians do?
Now, there are circumstances where finding out about somebody having weapons might be worrisome, depending on who they were and what kind of weapons they were. Like, if it was your neighbor, and he had a bomb, that would be awfully worrisome-- because bombs are uncommon in residential areas, there's no valid reason why your neighbor might have a bomb, and you have no particular reason to expect your neighbor would randomly stockpile bombs but never use them. And if was Iran, and they had a nuclear weapon, then that would be a good reason to be downright alarmed.But the Hungarian army having stun tazers? Wait, why is this supposed to be interesting again? Similarly, why should it make a difference that Nintendo (a company with no history of patent abuse or even patent enforcement really) obtained a specific patent on a specific instant messaging system that they designed for a product six years ago and then never sold?
The Hungarian army stockpiles weapons but never does anything with them. Nintendo stockpiles patents but never does anything with them. The world is a dangerous place but we survive anyway. Deal.
How long 'till Microsoft gets the one-click patent for buying addons to Oblivion *ON A CONSOLE*?
I'm guessing that it isn't long before Microsoft patents one-click buying of stuff *ON THE WII*.
That would show Nintendo.
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