It should be illegal to apply for patents with the express purpose of suing someone else over what is now prior art.
Pretty sure it is. The patent office will generally give you anything you want tho and let the expensive courts settle the fallout.
Kinda wild that they still rejected almost all of the patents tho, like holy shit that’s impressively incompetent on Nintendo’s part.
Yes, but how does that make rich people more money?
Nah, let them file all they want, so long as they pay for them. If they’re bogus patents, they’re rejected and it’s basically just a money transfer to the patent office employees.
This. You don’t “negotiate” with the Patent Office. The courts decide whether patent infringement has occurred. You “negotiate” with THEM.
Nintendo, you don’t just get to file patents after a competitor makes a better product than you, and then try to use those to shut your competitor down.
Yes you do. The US changed to first-to-file in 2013.
Is “prior art” not still a thing?
Not in the US, where you can buy anything, including patent office rulings.
I think we all know they didn’t stop Palworld because they saw it grow and wanted them to get more money first.
It never ceases to amaze me how people will see some corporation do something shady that is already bad and still find it in themselves to come up with some crazy conspiracy theory about it anyway, even if the conspiracy isn’t any worse than the demonstrable thing that’s actually happening.
Or how they fail to mark their sarcasm, I guess, if that’s what this is.
Why do you think it’s a conspiracy theory to assume the patent fraud strategy was only implemented after Palworld got big?
I know the OG statement was a bit more provocative and sensationalist, but I think the high level logic holds.
Genuinely curious.
The implication as I read it is that they DIDN’T stop Palworld as a deliberate ploy to let it get big. Presumably to get more money by suing them? I don’t know, it’s a bizarre statement.
What you’re saying is the much more reasonable alternative: that Nintendo is filing patents now to try to get a legal leg to stand on to stop a meaningful, derivative competitor to Pokémon.
Those two things aren’t the same thing. One of them is a weird conspiratorial thought that doesn’t track with reality, the other is a fairly obvious takeaway. They both stem from the fact that Nintendo only took action once Palworld got big and they’re both equally crappy corporate behavior. But one of those demands retroactive foresight, a malicious plan for something to happen a specific way as part of a grand plan and the reversal of cause and effect. The other is just plain vanilla corporate greed and brand protection from a traditionally litigious company.
I, on my part, am saying that I find it baffling that people want/need to resort to building up these moustache-twirling overcomplicated plans hidden below the surface while simultaneously lacking the imagination to make the imaginary plans any more evil than the plain, patently obvious straightforward reality. I guess it feels good to sense that you have some sharp insight about the secrets behind the curtain whether the secrets are interesting or not.
That’s fair. I agree.
I guess I was vaguely alluding to the fact that patent fraud stuff did start after Palworld got big. But what you’re saying makes a lot sense.
So is Nintendo basically opening the door for a bunch of Pokemon clones?
Gonna go to Nintendo land in Japan and leave a bunch of emulator software around on USBs
