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[rm082e]

If Nintendo were to try and selectively apply this, like to smaller devs doing new games, but didn't try to go after Square for FF, Atlas for SMT, or Microsoft for Diablo, wouldn't that sort of invalidate their argument that they have to protect their IP by suing? That's always the logic I've heard in patent lawsuits - "we don't want to sue, but if we don't sue every instance of this, we effectively lose the ability to sue anyone over it".

I'd love to hear a patent lawyer do a deep dive on this one.

 

[Fbh]

Absolutely ridiculous that patents like this are granted.
What's next, Taito will be retroactively given the patent to pause games?

 

[Kataploom]

Let's see how it goes, that's like if I get a patent to put wheels on cars. I was planning to get back to Pokemon with ZA but now I'm not feeling like it...

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I don't like the timeline we're in.

 

[StereoVsn]

A classic example is the patent for having a loading screen minigame (back when loading times could be way longer than these days). It expired in 2015, but before that... yeah, they didn't exist. Because of said patent.

A more recent example is the "nemesis system". It's a novel concept, but worthy of patent protection? I think not. But alas, it is patented, which is why we haven't seen it outside the two Mordor games.

Software patents in general are mostly ridiculous, IMO. The code itself is copyrighted, there should be no way to patent a concept in vast majority of cases.

 

[Robb]

Nintendo was granted a patent last week which covers the action of summoning another character and making them battle on the player's behalf.

 

[Lynkk]

 

[Zacfoldor]

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Truth is you are blaming the wrong person. This isn't Nintendo's fault. Do you seriously believe the are bribing people? No, they are just good. When you are mad at someone else for winning you are usually a loser, always a hater, by definition.

 

[Soodanim]

In unrelated news, a US patent officer was recently seen purchasing a new car, a new boat, and gold teeth.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Ubisoft should patent towers in open world games that reveal sections of the map and send Nintendo a C&D on Breath of the Wild.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

So they have a patent on lawyers now. I expect all their opponents in court to have to face them without legal counsel from now on.

 

[nowhat]

Software patents in general are mostly ridiculous, IMO. The code itself is copyrighted, there should be no way to patent a concept in vast majority of cases.

Oh believe me, I'm with you. In their infancy, it was about patenting math. Which, in and of itself, is ridiculous. Then we got into patenting abstract concepts. But after that, "business method patents". Which is just like, patent examiners (and the judges that rule on these matters) need to be taken behind the shed and beaten with an appropriately large cluebat.

 

[proandrad]

RIP summons in just about every JRPG. Really need to remove boomers from making decisions on concepts they don't understand.

 

[StereoVsn]

Oh believe me, I'm with you. In their infancy, it was about patenting math. Which, in and of itself, is ridiculous. Then we got into patenting abstract concepts. But after that, "business method patents". Which is just like, patent examiners (and the judges that rule on these matters) need to be taken behind the shed and beaten with an appropriately large cluebat.

Yep, US Patent office (and I am sure Japanese one as well) need a serious overhaul.

Instead in US our President and his minions want to get some cash from patents utilized and are planning to charge some serious fees as basically gov kickback.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

I wish people knew how patients function...and how pre-existing works play into that process.

But lets skip over that...and jump directly to grabbing our torches.

Anyway Nintendo deserves to have this patient because they are the best'est and it is too bad Elon couldn't get his patent on Telepathy and Telekinesis last month.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Many of us only live here at this point because we can't afford to leave....

Speak for yourself. I love America! Only place in the world where I can protect myself form home invaders and have speech protections. (Say something bad in England and watch the police come and get you. Also you can get jailed for defending yourself). Also some patent bs doesn't make the country bad. lol....

As if other countries aren't expensive. They are (and games are usually more money)

 

[Sethbacca]

Speak for yourself. I love America! Only place in the world where I can protect myself form home invaders and have speech protections. (Say something bad in England and watch the police come and get you. Also you can get jailed for defending yourself). Also some patent bs doesn't make the country bad. lol....

As if other countries aren't expensive. They are (and games are usually more money)

I'm gonna steer away from this conversation because it would tend to get politically charged, but I'm all set with sucking the dick of American exceptionalism. The only people who say shit like "Other countries don't have free speech" are people that tend to have never left their hometown. It's a failing society and a failed experiment and I would be surprised if it's around in it's current form in another 100 years. This country is barely fuckin keeping it together right now.

 

[Shadowstar39]

America truly is the biggest problem…So much for the 'freedom' you love to spout. Absolute cretin move by Nintendo…

Attacking my country because of a patent... that doesn't mean the rest of the country is shit, its not its great! (or people wouldn't be trying to sneak the f in).

Lawyers suck all around, they always have always will, Doesn't matter where you live. We just have more of them and more patent law. It doesn't affect your "Freedom"

 

[Shadowstar39]

I'm gonna steer away from this conversation because it would tend to get politically charged, but I'm all set with sucking the dick of American exceptionalism. The only people who say shit like "Other countries don't have free speech" are people that tend to have never left their hometown. It's a failing society and a failed experiment and I would be surprised if it's around in it's current form in another 100 years. This country is barely fuckin keeping it together right now.

lmao....dude the reddit and resetera echo chambers have got you huh? Sorry but you just insulted millions of people., it aint cool , but this aint the place for it... so that is all i am going to say on it.

 

[Sethbacca]

lmao....dude the reddit and resetera echo chambers have got you huh? Sorry but you just insulted millions of people., it aint cool , but this aint the place for it... so that is all i am going to say on it.

How dare I speak my own opinion about the state of my own country and not any group of people whom you are insinuating that I have apparently insulted.....
Anyway, moving on.....

 

[L*][*N*K]

Keep on sucking that Mario cock, champ.

I am fine watching you gobble up Herman's, you are like doing like an Olympics sports with that thing god damn

 

[Skeptical]

Oh goody, another patent topic. Without discussing whether what actually is presented here should count as novel or the general concept of patenting game concepts anyway, some of the drive by posts are clearly incorrect. So just to clarify (not that anyone will care or read this...):

- This is not a "USA" thing. The patent was initially filed in Japan. It is standard practice for companies to file in essentially every major market. Has anyone here checked other countries to see if this has been rejected in all of them but the US? I'm guessing no. So stop saying that the USA is stupid when this is not country specific.

- This was not filed in response to PalWorld. The initial patent was filed in 2022, before the game was available in Early Access. It takes time for stuff to get approved.

- Most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, this does NOT mean that any "summon" is comparable to this patent. This is not like summoning Espers or whatever in Final Fantasy. This is not like Pets in World of Warcraft. This is not like Persona/SMT. This is not like summoning others in Dark Souls. Seriously, do you guys really think Nintendo's lawyers are dumb enough to not know what they need to write to not get the patent invalidated? Do you really think a multi-billion dollar company just yolos its patent writing process?

The patent is very clear. You need to target a specific location in the virtual space with your summoning item (ie, not just summon from a menu) AND the immediate action the summoned character takes is different whether there is an enemy at the targeted location or not.

Literally every example that has been provided in this thread up to this point does not do that (or at least all of the ones I am aware of). Look, is the idea of patenting this type of stuff dumb? Maybe, but as stated previously Nintendo is not the first or only company to do so. But this is not patenting something generic like "summoning." People should actually read the patent before providing their hot takes.

 

[ShadowkillXNA]

If Sony did it you'd be defending it right now

Sony didn't do it, so what is your point?
Oh right, you don't have one.
Any reason (besides the obvious) you cant reply to a thread about Nintendo news without defensiveness and bringing up Sony/Microsoft?

 

[IAmRei]

US patents approval are a fucking joke

For sure this is related to Palworld but remember Shin Megami Tensei??

if You count megaten, they could be the first more than pokemon actually

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

Although I'm a Nintendo fan, this clearly shows how money and power can rewrite and reshape history to fit their own narrative.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Oh believe me, I'm with you. In their infancy, it was about patenting math. Which, in and of itself, is ridiculous. Then we got into patenting abstract concepts. But after that, "business method patents". Which is just like, patent examiners (and the judges that rule on these matters) need to be taken behind the shed and beaten with an appropriately large cluebat.

Dude the patent law is fucked. My old company i worked for 15 years ago had to sell to a Canadian company as we got sued for using a slogan in a customer's logo(wasn't even ours), a very vague slogan (something like this: "Guaranteed sale or we buy it"). We made real estate websites. The company suing us was a direct competitor, and they used that slogan too. Like we scoured the internet for it, lol it was one of many. The judge was like 90 years old and didn't understand concepts of websites and digital creations, and ruled for the other guy. Our company got bought out and I had to work for Canadians who didn't provide insurance benefits because they didn't have to (we had it prior). Needless to say I didn't stay long and that company is now gone.

Patents can protect and can be a nusance. For company names or physical inventions they are good, for vague slogans or concepts like this Nintendo thing, no bad.

 

[Sethbacca]

Seriously, do you guys really think Nintendo's lawyers are dumb enough to not know what they need to write to not get the patent invalidated? Do you really think a multi-billion dollar company just yolos its patent writing process?

The problem is that they're smart enough to write it just vaguely enough that they can challenge any game that has a similar system. Larger devs may be able to fight it, but indy studios won't have a prayer and will just have to fold and create a different concept.

 

[nowhat]

Dude the patent law is fucked. My old company i worked for 15 years ago had to sell to a Canadian company as we got sued for using a slogan in a customer's logo(wasn't even ours), a very vague slogan (something like this: "Guaranteed sale or we buy it"). We made real estate websites. The company suing us was a direct competitor, and they used that slogan too. Like we scoured the internet for it, lol it was one of many. The judge was like 90 years old and didn't understand concepts of websites and digital creations, and ruled for the other guy. Our company got bought out and I had to work for Canadians who didn't provide insurance benefits because they didn't have to (we had it prior). Needless to say I didn't stay long and that company is now gone.

Patents can protect and can be a nusance. For company names or physical inventions they are good, for vague slogans or concepts like this Nintendo thing, no bad.

What you're talking about sounds more like trademark law though. But that's a whole another can of worms.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Oh goody, another patent topic. Without discussing whether what actually is presented here should count as novel or the general concept of patenting game concepts anyway, some of the drive by posts are clearly incorrect. So just to clarify (not that anyone will care or read this...):

- This is not a "USA" thing. The patent was initially filed in Japan. It is standard practice for companies to file in essentially every major market. Has anyone here checked other countries to see if this has been rejected in all of them but the US? I'm guessing no. So stop saying that the USA is stupid when this is not country specific.

- This was not filed in response to PalWorld. The initial patent was filed in 2022, before the game was available in Early Access. It takes time for stuff to get approved.

- Most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, this does NOT mean that any "summon" is comparable to this patent. This is not like summoning Espers or whatever in Final Fantasy. This is not like Pets in World of Warcraft. This is not like Persona/SMT. This is not like summoning others in Dark Souls. Seriously, do you guys really think Nintendo's lawyers are dumb enough to not know what they need to write to not get the patent invalidated? Do you really think a multi-billion dollar company just yolos its patent writing process?

The patent is very clear. You need to target a specific location in the virtual space with your summoning item (ie, not just summon from a menu) AND the immediate action the summoned character takes is different whether there is an enemy at the targeted location or not.

Literally every example that has been provided in this thread up to this point does not do that (or at least all of the ones I am aware of). Look, is the idea of patenting this type of stuff dumb? Maybe, but as stated previously Nintendo is not the first or only company to do so. But this is not patenting something generic like "summoning." People should actually read the patent before providing their hot takes.

Thank you for making sense of this. The drive by country bashing is kind of crazy. Feels like some are just waiting to do it. Also this clarifies a lot. Hopefully you are right and this is just a specific instance and doesn't apply to other games or new games with general summons. Personally I couldn't see that even going through if that was the case. Too many companies would fight it.

 

[StereoVsn]

Oh goody, another patent topic. Without discussing whether what actually is presented here should count as novel or the general concept of patenting game concepts anyway, some of the drive by posts are clearly incorrect. So just to clarify (not that anyone will care or read this...):

- This is not a "USA" thing. The patent was initially filed in Japan. It is standard practice for companies to file in essentially every major market. Has anyone here checked other countries to see if this has been rejected in all of them but the US? I'm guessing no. So stop saying that the USA is stupid when this is not country specific.

- This was not filed in response to PalWorld. The initial patent was filed in 2022, before the game was available in Early Access. It takes time for stuff to get approved.

- Most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, this does NOT mean that any "summon" is comparable to this patent. This is not like summoning Espers or whatever in Final Fantasy. This is not like Pets in World of Warcraft. This is not like Persona/SMT. This is not like summoning others in Dark Souls. Seriously, do you guys really think Nintendo's lawyers are dumb enough to not know what they need to write to not get the patent invalidated? Do you really think a multi-billion dollar company just yolos its patent writing process?

The patent is very clear. You need to target a specific location in the virtual space with your summoning item (ie, not just summon from a menu) AND the immediate action the summoned character takes is different whether there is an enemy at the targeted location or not.

Literally every example that has been provided in this thread up to this point does not do that (or at least all of the ones I am aware of). Look, is the idea of patenting this type of stuff dumb? Maybe, but as stated previously Nintendo is not the first or only company to do so. But this is not patenting something generic like "summoning." People should actually read the patent before providing their hot takes.

This is a software concept patent and it shouldn't be legal to do this in the first place. If they provide information on specific technical implementation, maybe then, but as it's listed, the whole thing is still ridiculous.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

Hopefully this is challenged by pointing out shin megami came first.

 

[Sethbacca]

This is a software concept patent and it shouldn't be legal to do this in the first place.

It's the same reason no new games can have a nemesis like system popularized in the Middle Earth games. Which sucks, because that was pretty fun.

 

[tr1p1ex]

you could summon fighters in Smash to fight for you using amiibo back on the Wii U.

 

[HJuggernaut]

doesn't final fantasy have this?

 

[Walliwallipaloo]

You can't patent a basic gameplay mechanic.

"I'm going to patent fighting in games" ......fuck them

You *shouldn't be able to*, and that's the crux of this. It's something to be fought for. This needs to end. This isn't fabrication techniques for making your WonderMatic 9000 massage wand. This is something that patent law wasn't meant to cover. This is being flagrantly abused and must stop.

Imagine what would happen if someone patented long shots in film, or certain type of scene transitions. Because this is the equivalent, no question.

Attacking america and acting like it's the worst shithole around just because of a patent is ridiculous

It's becoming one of the worst shitholes around. Insane patent laws aren't helping that matter.

 

[Ar¢tos]

Oh goody, another patent topic. Without discussing whether what actually is presented here should count as novel or the general concept of patenting game concepts anyway, some of the drive by posts are clearly incorrect. So just to clarify (not that anyone will care or read this...):

- This is not a "USA" thing. The patent was initially filed in Japan. It is standard practice for companies to file in essentially every major market. Has anyone here checked other countries to see if this has been rejected in all of them but the US? I'm guessing no. So stop saying that the USA is stupid when this is not country specific.

- This was not filed in response to PalWorld. The initial patent was filed in 2022, before the game was available in Early Access. It takes time for stuff to get approved.

- Most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, this does NOT mean that any "summon" is comparable to this patent. This is not like summoning Espers or whatever in Final Fantasy. This is not like Pets in World of Warcraft. This is not like Persona/SMT. This is not like summoning others in Dark Souls. Seriously, do you guys really think Nintendo's lawyers are dumb enough to not know what they need to write to not get the patent invalidated? Do you really think a multi-billion dollar company just yolos its patent writing process?

The patent is very clear. You need to target a specific location in the virtual space with your summoning item (ie, not just summon from a menu) AND the immediate action the summoned character takes is different whether there is an enemy at the targeted location or not.

Literally every example that has been provided in this thread up to this point does not do that (or at least all of the ones I am aware of). Look, is the idea of patenting this type of stuff dumb? Maybe, but as stated previously Nintendo is not the first or only company to do so. But this is not patenting something generic like "summoning." People should actually read the patent before providing their hot takes.

In Elden Ring/Nightreign you can throw a pot that summons Wraiths in the place where it lands, if it hits an enemy or there is an enemy nearby the wraiths will attack the enemy, if there isn't an enemy nearby they just disperse.

 

[Gojiira]

Attacking america and acting like it's the worst shithole around just because of a patent is ridiculous. Come on man.

Oh boy Americans sure cant take criticism Come on man, hyperbole is pathetic

 

[Hudo]

Brb, I'm going to patent shitting out of my ass.

 

[tkscz]

This stuff really shouldn't be patented. It's basic gameplay logic starting from things like Dungeons and Dragons. While devs can still do it as Nintendo has to actively stop them, this will make them not want to in fear of that. This is very scummy behavior.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Fix the patent system.

 

[Revreign]

I can't see how this patent will be upheld in court. There are prior examples of this to anything Nintendo did. Final Fantasy IV was 1991 and that's probably not even the earliest example in a popular video game.

 

[Arrapaho]

Rip mimic tear (ashes of war) in Elden Ring

 

[Edgelord79]

This is a pretty ridiculous and broad patent. Pretty unbelievable to be honest. There has to be more to this.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Is the US patents office run by people who've never heard of videogames? can't think of any other reason how this got granted.

 

[Gamer79]

Only for the low price of $99.99 per character/

 

[cash_longfellow]

Nintendo lawsuit suing any game that has summons, coming in hot

 

[cash_longfellow]

America truly is the biggest problem…So much for the 'freedom' you love to spout. Absolute cretin move by Nintendo…

wtf are you even saying? FOH with this nonsense…imagine trying to derail this thread to make it about a whole country of people… really a bigoted comment

 

[MagiusNecros]

Nintendo lawsuit suing any game that has summons, coming in hot

So every Gacha game ever?

 

[Skifi28]

If Sony did it you'd be defending it right now

Surely there is no need for a VS platform war on this and even you can spot the problem here, no?

 

[cash_longfellow]

So every Gacha game ever?