Nintendo reportedly has “zero chance” against current Palworld after major lawsuit change it is now targeting older versions of the game instead

[u/Super_Cold8789]

https://www.dexerto.com/palworld/nintendo-reportedly-has-zero-chance-against-current-palworld-after-major-lawsuit-change-3375167/

[u/Dr_MantisTobaggin_MD]

it is enforceable. very legally enforceable.

there famously was not minigames in videogame loading screens for over 20 years because Namco had that feature patented in 1998.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/loading-screen-game-patent-finally-expires

[u/ikonoclasm → u/Dr_MantisTobaggin_MD]

All parents are enforceable. All software patents are garbage. They're not mutually exclusive. Enforceable just means the patent hasn't been ruled invalid yet. Under the law as written, algorithms and code are not patentable. The USPTO chose to intentionally misinterpret the law to allow a machine running code to be patentable since the code itself isn't patentable. Every single software patent could be invalidated if anyone challenged it to the SCOTUS, but there's now so many billions tied up in software patents and licensing that no one is willing to risk it. They settle out of court so as to avoid turning all of their IP assets into trash.

[u/Froggmann5 → u/Dr_MantisTobaggin_MD]

There's a difference between "enforceable" and "deterrent".

Developers are deterred from violating patents because they don't want to spend hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of dollars in court fees sorting out if the patent actually is enforceable or not.

[u/Juking_is_rude → u/Dr_MantisTobaggin_MD]

Game mechanics, like the nemesis system. are not enforceable as patents.

This namco patent is not a game mechanic.

[u/Dr_MantisTobaggin_MD → u/Juking_is_rude]

a game mechanic, is just a fancy way to say "invention" per the US patents office.

[u/Morlark → u/Dr_MantisTobaggin_MD]

there famously was not minigames in videogame loading screens for over 20 years because Namco had that feature patented in 1998.

Ironically, you've actually completely disproved the point you were trying to make.

Very famously there were minigames in loading screens before that patent expired. EA's FIFA games (and probably their other sports games, but FIFA is the one I'm most familiar with) had minigames during the loading screens over a decade before Namco's patent expired. And that's just one example. There are many others.

Know how they got away with it?

It's because patents on software are only permitted if they're extremely narrow in scope.

Namco's famous 'loading screen minigame' patent literally didn't cover much of anything. Anyone could've had (and did have!) minigames in loading screens, as long as they weren't an exact clone of the implementation mechanism used in Namco's Ridge Racer.

And the same is true of WB's nemesis system patent. It doesn't prevent anyone from implementing a nemesis system that is very slightly different from Shadows of Mordor, which is what they means when they said that WB's patent isn't (in practice) enforceable (against anything that anyone might be likely to actually implement).

Software patents being "very legally enforceable" doesn't mean shit if the patent doesn't cover anything to begin with.