Looking up those patents, the first alludes to a system where a player aims and fires an “item” toward a character in a field, and in doing so triggers combat, and then dives into extraordinary intricacies about switching between modes within this. The second is very similar, but seems more directly focused on tweaking previous patents to including being able to capture Pokémon in the wild, rather than only during battle. The third, rather wildly, seems to be trying to claim a modification to the invention of riding creatures in an open world and being able to transition between them easily.

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[–] LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world 184 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

People need to stop supporting Nintendo at all. They're lawsuit happy assholes who have been doing everything they can to piss away any good will they might have had. They're the only game company out there who refuses to make enough of many of their products, like their mini NES and SNES, to meet demand because then its "exclusive", they are the only company trying to destroy all type of emulation for Nintendo consoles, and they're the only company who seems to actually want their older games to disappear into the ether. Edit: Oh and they fucking refuse to put their games on sale or lower their prices years afterwards. BoTW is still 60 bucks even though it's 7 and a half years old. Fucking insane.

Fuck Nintendo.

[–] RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social 53 points 1 week ago (1 children)

trying to destroy all type of emulation for Nintendo consoles

Only emulation used by others. They're happy to kang all' the ROMs and emulators off' a site before destroying it for everyone else, then not even sell most of the damn things. Absurd. There's nothing good about that, not even for Nintendo themselves.

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[–] riskable@programming.dev 142 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Software patents shouldn't exist!

[–] piecat@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Patents shouldn't exist! Mostly.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Patents shouldn’t exist! Mostly.

We had a history before patents/copyright were enforced. It was pretty brutal for anyone trying to make a living with their creations. Take a look and see if you want to return to that.

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 31 points 1 week ago (9 children)

yeah now its brutal for anyone trying to make a living and excellent for anyone who already inherited a living and has more money than they could use in multiple lifetimes. I'd hate to go back to when it was just brutal for anyone trying to make a living.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think the problem would be similar. The rich and powerful would be the only ones to profit off of inventions and innovations.

We still have indie game devs today. Imagine if any company could just copy an indie game and scale it up/polish a bit and get all the sales.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 3 points 6 days ago

Imagine if any company could just copy an indie game and scale it up/polish a bit and get all the sales.

You're describing the entire mobile games industry. You think all those top apps in the app stores are 100% original? No. They copied other games.

Also, patents have nothing to do with that. Software is covered by copyright.

Furthermore, "back in the day" manufacturing was expensive and required huge factories to build stuff (in quantity). The barrier to entry was enormous! People were mostly uneducated and there was not much in the way of "shared engineering knowledge". Ten thousand people could look at a car engine and have no friggin clue how it worked. That's why patents were necessary: Disclosure

These days disclosure has become irrelevant. Any engineer can look at an invention or product and figure out both how it works and how it was made. At the very least, they can figure out a way to make it. Just look at all the Youtube channels where every day people are making complicated machines, parts, and electronics! The mysteries are gone. Disclosure is unnecessary.

Since the entire point of patents was disclosure why do we still need them?

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[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A shitty solution for a shitty situation is not a good solution

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

A shitty solution for a shitty situation is not a good solution

Feel free to share your revolutionary idea that will still incentivize people to create without creating a "shitty situation".

[–] riskable@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago

Software existed for decades without (software) patents and has innovated and evolved vastly more quickly than any other science. Then we created software patents and things actually started to slow down (because lawsuits take time and threaten to end great software before it even exists).

Software is already covered by copyright which is all that was necessary for some of the richest companies in the world to come into existence (e.g. Microsoft, Oracle). Software patents shouldn't exist!

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't need to come up with any revolutionary ideas, the open source folks are already creating without patenting their creations

Here's a revolutionary idea: universal basic income. No need to prevent other people from monetizing your idea if you don't need to monetize your idea in the first place

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I don’t need to come up with any revolutionary ideas, the open source folks are already creating without patenting their creations

The largest contributors to Open Source make their money from patents and other IP. As in, they can afford to give away lots of time and effort because they make their money with IP. If IP were to be eradicated as you're proposing, all those contributions to Open Source by those largest contributors would evaporate. Here's the largest Open Source contributors from 2017-2020.

source

[–] riskable@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago

The largest contributors to Open Source make their money from patents and other IP.

The data in that video is (probably) accurate but your statement is completely wrong: In that list only Intel makes anything but trivial amounts of money from patents. In fact, Microsoft, Google, and Docker have famously lost shittons of money thanks to patents. They basically siphoned money out of those companies into the pockets of lawyers and provided absolutely no benefit to society.

For fuck's sake: Features were removed from Android because of software patents!

Not only that but Google makes almost all of its money from advertising, not "IP". Same for Meta which is oddly missing from the graph (even though they contribute to and maintain a ton of FOSS stuff).

Then let's talk about #1: Redhat. They absolutely would be 1000% behind banning software patents. It's nothing but trouble for them.

I'd also like to note that Microsoft has been very much in favor of software patents since they were invented by the courts (remember: no legislation added software as a category of patentable subject matter: They exist as a result of court rulings!) because they thought they would put an end to open source software (see: Halloween documents). However, software patents have actually cost Microsoft more than they ever helped the company! In short: They're idiots. They opened a can of worms that's kept them constantly under attack but because those worms also hurt their perceived enemies they've doubled down on their decision.

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[–] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Patents are not the problem, they serve as a way to share the knowledge of a creation with everyone while protecting your company for a REASONABLE TIME to compensate for the RnD costs.

The problem is the distortion of the concept to fit late stage capitalism delights.

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[–] Venicon@lemmy.world 85 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fuck Nintendo. They get a pass so often from people when they really shouldn’t.

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago

Part of the reason is because most people don't notice the lawsuits or think this is boilerplate legal stuff that happens in the background all the time. They're too distracted by the entertainment side of things.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 73 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ok that third one, come the fuck on.

Like don't even pretend. You could never ride nearly the number of Pokemon you can compared to Pals in Palworld.

That's basically patenting riding a fucking horse

[–] UnsavoryMollusk@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I hope they sue Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed 1 after that /s

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

People who don't like Palworld, maybe give a real reason? The AI stuff was made up by a salty troll who admitted later he made it up. It being "legally distinct from pokémon" isn't a good enough reason. It having the ability to

Spoiler

butcher your Pals for resources

may be a reason to be upset about the gameplay, but then again, many, many, many RPGs have you culling the local wildlife and depopulating a nation for quests too. Neither is the Genshin Impact art style a reason to hate it. That's just JRPG asthetics.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The butchering thing always bugged me. Where tf do you think your chicken nuggies come from? The only difference is that we don't let real animals have friends before we kill em

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Real animals have friends. Beef cows are slaughtered at about 1 yr old, and they don't keep them in isolation for a year

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

I guess I should have said we don't make friends with them. I could have also drawn attention to the awful living conditions, but getting all Dominion-y wouldn't have the pizzazzy oomph that I was going for

[–] icogniito@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Its a very lazy mediocre game that only got recognition because it was ”Pokémon with guns”

I don’t like what Nintendo is doing, but I also thing palworld is a crap game

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It definitely only got popular because of the hype re: "Pokemon with guns," but it's legitimately better than the game it actually copied, which is Ark. You know what's cool about Palworld? Me and my coplayer were able to stop playing without losing everything we've built

Anyone who thinks Palworld is actually a Pokemon ripoff either hasn't played Palworld or hasn't played Pokemon

[–] icogniito@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Gameplay wise palworld has nothing to do with Pokémon, it was simply a marketing tool for em.

As for the ark comparison I can’t comment, the one time I played it was on the early access launch day during which I refunded it within 45 minutes because it performed horribly, that was almost 10 years ago though so not sure how the current game compares

[–] Glytch@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Butchering your pals is less of a problem than enslaving other human beings.

More to the point it's just bad. It's incredibly grindy, has an incongruous tech tree, and the A.I. (both enemy and ally) is trash. It's also mostly a copy of their previous game, Craftopia, which was also bad and has been in Early Access for 4 years now with no signs of ever leaving it.

I don't hate Palworld because it's a low effort Pokemon knockoff, I hate Palworld because it's a low effort Ark knockoff following the same business plan of not finishing their previous game before abandoning it for their new game. At least with Ark you got to ride dinosaurs rather than store-brand Rapidash.

[–] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

To be fair, Genshin Impact art style could be a reason to hate it if you hate JRPG aesthetics.

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[–] LANIK2000@lemmy.world 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Pretty sure 1 and 3 could be applied to many modern actions games. Software patents shouldn't exist! Same with apple's patents for specific menu animations. It's fucking evil!

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Any game with ranged weapons is literally this. If I'm playing Fallout 4 and shoot a raider in the head then combat is initiated. That's literally his combat works. Fuck Nintendo and fuck bullshit patents.

[–] Bosht@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago

So greed. Like everyone predicted.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 24 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Obviously this depends on the exact details of the patents, which are all in Japanese, as well as the specifics of Japanese patent laws.

However, patents only last for 20 years, and they are undermined by public disclosure before filing. The first Pokemon game came out more than 20 years ago. However^2 not all of the features in the patents were present in the original games. All 3 patents were first filed in 2021, well after many of these features were established.

The first patent is about aiming something and entering into a fight mode. This wasn't in the original game. Aiming at enemies and entering a fight mode almost certainly existed before Pokemon (Final Fantasy perhaps). Furthermore, Palworld doesn't really have a fight mode - it isn't a turn based game but real time. Throwing a sphere is just one way to start a "battle" but there is no mode change between "explore" and "battle" modes because they are functionally the same in Palworld. Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee, which were all around in 2018, would seem to amount to public disclosure that undermines this patent.

The second patent has more detail about catching Pokemon outside of battles. This might have some elements of Palworld gameplay in it. However, again we have prior art that predates the patent.

The third patent is about riding characters. This has certainly existed in other games before Pokemon and before this patent. Off the top of my head, World of Warcraft had you riding mounts, Final Fantasy had you riding Chocobos, and Mega Man let you ride Rush.

However the big issue with all of these is that these challenges are always better off done before the patent is granted. With the patents established it is a massive uphill struggle trying to get them withdrawn. Given that each charge is only for $33,000, so about $100,000 total, I expect a settlement will be reached instead of going on this fight.

[–] Kelly@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago

Given that each charge is only for $33,000, so about $100,000 total, I expect a settlement will be reached instead of going on this fight.

Unfortunately that would be the worst outcome for everyone else.

The patents need to be contested and invalidated or smaller devs will feel they can't use these mechanics.

[–] Nightweb@lemm.ee 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If I recall correctly weren’t all the patients filed for and approved after PAL World released?

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[–] AkatsukiLevi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The third one, wouldn't it hit Rockstar with Red Dead Redemption? After all, you do ride a animal(horse) and can easily swap in and our of 'em

[–] Breezy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I thought of elden ring more so of the patent. Palworld wasnt as smooth as summoning torrent, but it felt very similar.

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 week ago

Software parents, specifically game mechanic parents, are fucking insane. You should see the stuff Square Enix has patented following death stranding.

I get the whole "they just reskinned my game mechanics!!!" but also: I don't. It's like saying Go, Draughts, Chess, etc. are copies or "infringing" on one another for being a board game set on a grid with black/white pieces.

Even the idea of intellectual property is shaky for me but at least it's more clear cut whether you've directly copied or deceived someone with a similar design of a character.

[–] irotsoma@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

They left it small so that it wouldn't be worth it to fight in court and they'd either just settle for a license fee or pay the fine. But sounds like the best way would be to get the patents revoked, but that's probably more expensive than just paying the fine due to the legal fees.

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