For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
What a sad sad outcome. Patenting game mechanics should not be legal.
It isn't in the US but is in Japan where the companies are based.
It's still somewhat protected in the US. The big one in table top gaming was tap mechanics from Magic. That expired in 2014 though. In video games the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor/war is also patented.
Loading screen mini games are also patented. That’s why loading screens never have mini games. Less of an issue now that game devs have begun avoiding loading screens, but they were extremely common in older generations and they never had mini games to pass the time.
That patent exired almost a decade ago: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/loading-screen-game-patent-finally-expires
I remember how impressive that was as a kid, when i played ridge racer on psx the first time.
Erm, acktchually! I think Nintendo is pretty cringe here, not based!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist)
Take this vote and leave before I change my mind
Ok, I'm outta here.
All jokes aside, I would like to weigh in and say that I find the whole patenting of game mechanics to be absolutely appalling. I genuinely don't get how this is legal, even in Japan. They filed this patent way too late for it to even make sense.
You could've made an argument if they patented it back in 1996, but even so... Fuck this. Imagine patenting a screen transition or something?
*Patenting
Oh, thanks. Corrected it
If Palworld devs were as petty as I am they'd probably make a Pal that looks like an obese and hostile Pikachu with a Mario hat.
Bonus points if the logo in the hat resembles a pokeball from a distance.
This game is still in early access so I hope this is only temporary and they will retool this to not be similar to Pokemon. There's no way this will be final right...?? No summon animation at all??!
How do Japanese patents differ from USA/CAN? My general understanding of patents is that they expire after 20 years - Pokemon is older than that. Do Japanese patents have a longer duration? Did Nintendo patent a game later than the originals?
These patents were granted to Nintendo this year.
I'm not patent savvy - of they are only granted this year (as a point of origin for the patents' eventually expiry), wouldn't the years of previous Pokemon games invalidate these patents due to prior art?
If they were related to the original games, yes it would. The patents were about 3d worlds though. I believe the palworld beta was before these patents were filed, so there would be a strong case to invalidate them. It probably won't happen, because Nintendo's proposed damages was basically pocket change compared to a legal battle.
You wouldn't patent the "game" you'd patent the various forms of utility or designs within that game. So throwing a sphere at a life form to then capture it could be one patent, but maybe then you'd also file another patent to cover keeping it alive and caring for it inside the ball habitat. You might file the second off of what is called a continuation filling and in combination, as you need both actions to get the full effect, you might get a bit of extended coverage in practice.
But the bigger thing here would probably be trademark law, which is a whole different beast.
Sure, I hadn't implied that the game was patented, but the mechanics were present in a game that is over 30 years old.
Worried what this means for Nexomon 3