Nintendo Sued Over Wii Motion Controls

[Atmos Duality]

Yeah, well things have obviously gone fucked up here as Nintendo invested all this money in R&D yet they are being sued for making and selling a product THAT THEY DESIGNED!

That's actually what's in question here. Did Nintendo actually develop the Wii's hardware? Or did they "borrow" some ideas from another firm?

We have statements and assumptions that claim they did. But such things are worthless without proof.

But most notably of how utterly redundant and pointless patents are: The Wii did so well without a patent. Doesn't this show how pointless patents are?

This demonstrates a process that could kill development before it begins.
Suppose you are a small firm that invests years and millions in capital/cash into R&D, then some big corporation hears that you have something very valuable to them.

In the absence of patents, they have no reason to license your tech.
They just acquire a piece of it (through means legal or otherwise).
So they copy it, implement it, and now you are out of millions (and probably your career) because they ate your lunch while you were completely powerless to stop them.

At best, you can gamble and release your product anyway, but you will be fighting uphill the whole time. Little guys typically do not win when someone bigger wields the only market leverage they had against them.

Don't believe me? Read up on Xerox. They got FUCKED right out of a market they practically created.

Note that I mention that smaller firms typically do a lot of R&D. Why is that?
Economically, it's because companies only do R&D to compete with other companies their size (unless they are the progenitor of an entirely new market, which isn't really the case here).

When the competition of a firm shrinks (primarily due to the bigger company buying the smaller ones out), their incentive to develop and advance shrinks proportionally.
If one attains a market dominance there isn't any real reason to move ahead.
"Why change that which works so well?" (or "Don't fix what isn't broken.")

It's part of why Microsoft went before Congress on Monopoly charges; because they had been buying out a TON of small development firms, taking their IP (patents and copyright) and burning the rest.
We fear monopolies because it kills competition, slows/halts innovation, and drives prices proportionally up. It's all about incentive and control.

A second example:
This practice is a BIG part of why Sony or Microsoft are extremely hesitant to move ahead with another generation of consoles; they're making shitloads of money on their existing systems DESPITE the advances in processing hardware that have been made in the 4-5 years since those consoles launched.

They spit in the eyes of Moore's Law because it lets them optimize profits. The longer they can drag out the state of the current market, the more profits they can assuredly turn.
If they had more serious competition (Nintendo sure isn't providing it lately), then their incentive to develop would be much higher.

This patent trolling achieves nothing but the GREAT being dragged down by the SMALL.

We know far too little about what actually happened during those 5 years. Details like negotiation-relations (prior to the suit being filed), development procedures for the tech and actual similarity within the existing product will prove to be far more relevant than the date the patents were filed.

Until we know more, Guilt, Innocence, and Convergence (happenstance) exist only as possible outcomes at this time. I do not discount the possibility of this being classic Patent Trolling, but I also do not discount the possibility of it being a legitimate case either.

 

[Treblaine]

Yeah, well things have obviously gone fucked up here as Nintendo invested all this money in R&D yet they are being sued for making and selling a product THAT THEY DESIGNED!

That's actually what's in question here. Did Nintendo actually develop the Wii's hardware? Or did they "borrow" some ideas from another firm?

We have statements and assumptions that claim they did. But such things are worthless without proof.

But most notably of how utterly redundant and pointless patents are: The Wii did so well without a patent. Doesn't this show how pointless patents are?

This demonstrates a process that could kill development before it begins.
Suppose you are a small firm that invests years and millions in capital/cash into R&D, then some big corporation hears that you have something very valuable to them.

In the absence of patents, they have no reason to license your tech.
They just acquire a piece of it (through means legal or otherwise).
So they copy it, implement it, and now you are out of millions (and probably your career) because they ate your lunch while you were completely powerless to stop them.

At best, you can gamble and release your product anyway, but you will be fighting uphill the whole time. Little guys typically do not win when someone bigger wields the only market leverage they had against them.

Don't believe me? Read up on Xerox. They got FUCKED right out of a market they practically created.

Note that I mention that smaller firms typically do a lot of R&D. Why is that?
Economically, it's because companies only do R&D to compete with other companies their size (unless they are the progenitor of an entirely new market, which isn't really the case here).

When the competition of a firm shrinks (primarily due to the bigger company buying the smaller ones out), their incentive to develop and advance shrinks proportionally.
If one attains a market dominance there isn't any real reason to move ahead.
"Why change that which works so well?" (or "Don't fix what isn't broken.")

It's part of why Microsoft went before Congress on Monopoly charges; because they had been buying out a TON of small development firms, taking their IP (patents and copyright) and burning the rest.
We fear monopolies because it kills competition, slows/halts innovation, and drives prices proportionally up. It's all about incentive and control.

A second example:
This practice is a BIG part of why Sony or Microsoft are extremely hesitant to move ahead with another generation of consoles; they're making shitloads of money on their existing systems DESPITE the advances in processing hardware that have been made in the 4-5 years since those consoles launched.

They spit in the eyes of Moore's Law because it lets them optimize profits. The longer they can drag out the state of the current market, the more profits they can assuredly turn.
If they had more serious competition (Nintendo sure isn't providing it lately), then their incentive to develop would be much higher.

This patent trolling achieves nothing but the GREAT being dragged down by the SMALL.

We know far too little about what actually happened during those 5 years. Details like negotiation-relations (prior to the suit being filed), development procedures for the tech and actual similarity within the existing product will prove to be far more relevant than the date the patents were filed.

Until we know more, Guilt, Innocence, and Convergence (happenstance) exist only as possible outcomes at this time. I do not discount the possibility of this being classic Patent Trolling, but I also do not discount the possibility of it being a legitimate case either.

Are you saying that the only company who should have the authority to make PCs should be Xerox? That Xerox should get a cut - as much as they demand - from Apple, Microsoft and anyone else who has anything close to a Graphic User Interface for a personal computer? BUUUULLSHIT!

I know all about Xerox. They had a good idea, poorly executed. They fucked THEMSELVES! They got beat by Apple BECAUSE THEY WERE BETTER!

Xerox's Star was overpriced and not user friendly. They could NOT have made the Apple II, and Apple would not have made that if they had to dance to Xerox's tune on patent restrictions. back then Patent system had something in the way of common sense. Xerox had a good idea, but Apple had a better DESIGN!

Watch this series:

http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/

"We are men standing on the shoulders of giants"
-Sir Issac Newton

Before you go accusing everyone of being a rip-off, consider how far we have all come "remixing" each other's work?

Nintendo has every right to make the Nintendo Wii as it is, sell it for what they like and they don't owe a penny to anyone else. Nor does ThinkOptics owe a penny to Nintendo, to spite using essentially idea to the Wii-mote, it is an IDEA!!!

What I can't stand, is if every person along the path wants their cut, you know who has to foot the bill:

YOU!

THEY make things more expensive, you have a whole gaggle of people all demanding $10 for every tiny contribution, forgetting how their idea was based on another person idea. Will they pass that money on? No. They exploit to patent system to their own ends at the cost of the ACTUAL creator and the consumer.

You can patent designs, you can't patent basic ideas.

There is a difference between copying the Wii-mote, every circuit, the camera type and everything. And copying the basic idea!

_______

PS: they are actually following Moore's Law only in a parallel direction. Moore's Law makes things smaller and cheaper, this has allowed the many price drops with re-designed that keep the same specification but use Moore's law to do the same thing much cheaper. And they are exploiting a tangential side of Moore's Law: the storage.

Now hard drives and SD-cards aren't strictly following Moore's law, but they near as well damn are, and a large fast hard drive on 360 makes it a completely different beast from launch. Freed from DVD you can have games like RAGE (thank's to a hefty install) in their extraordinary scope and detail. Also a unique emerging games model with XBLA games, most notably a game like Trenched something that you'd never have expected to find downloadable for $15 as little as 4 years ago.

 

[Virgilthepagan]

obvious troll is obvious?
Seriously, it looks like this is mostly just a frivolous lawsuit designed to capitalize on success the company itself never had.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Are you saying that the only company who should have the authority to make PCs should be Xerox? That Xerox should get a cut - as much as they demand - from Apple, Microsoft and anyone else who has anything close to a Graphic User Interface for a personal computer? BUUUULLSHIT!

I just find it hilarious that Xerox enabled two of the greatest patent abusers in the history of the computer industry to become multi-billion dollar megacorps.

It's as if someone found the Fountain of Youth, and then sold the whole thing to Aquafina because he couldn't afford bottles...

Before you go accusing everyone of being a rip-off, consider how far we have all come "remixing" each other's work?

If you want to boil the concept of "originality" down to vague generalities, then yes, original thought is a meaningless and indefensible concept.

In science, we give credit to the many brilliant dead men and women who discovered or founded scientific principles out of honor and reverence. But when you get right down to it: the attachment of the name Newton to a unit of force has no practical application beyond distinguishing it from another scientific unit. We could call them "Turbopops" and it would retain all functionality.

I tend to file that subject away next to "existentialism", "purpose" and "Life" as "Deep concepts that have no real practical value".

As for practical law: Patents are supposed to protect creators. It's about incentive and protection of one's work IN THE RELATIVE SHORT TERM (relative to the creator's lifespan), because as we move further and further along the "originality asymptote" competent/valuable ideas become increasingly valuable as distinction decreases.

Of course, because these ideas are valuable, other people *will* steal them. Fact of life.

Had we lived in a society more focused on open application than market exploitation, patent-protection wouldn't be necessary, but that's not the kind of world we live in.

Nintendo has every right to make the Nintendo Wii as it is, sell it for what they like and they don't owe a penny to anyone else. Nor does ThinkOptics owe a penny to Nintendo, to spite using essentially idea to the Wii-mote, it is an IDEA!!!

That's a matter for the courts to decide. Not you.

What I can't stand, is if every person along the path wants their cut, you know who has to foot the bill:

YOU!

I fail to see how this is any different from reality. Everything in society from privately funded research to public observations has a cost of some sort (even indirectly, ala "Tragedy of the Commons").

The only question is how aggregate or compartmentalized that cost is.

You can patent designs, you can't patent basic ideas.

There is a difference between copying the Wii-mote, every circuit, the camera type and everything. And copying the basic idea!

There is. And it's those differences that will be tested in court.

If Nintendo copied the design for specific components, it can be proven.
There are numerous places where the DESIGN (not the CONCEPT, the DESIGN) could have been copied within the software or even the Wiimote.

PS: they are actually following Moore's Law only in a parallel direction. Moore's Law makes things smaller and cheaper, this has allowed the many price drops with re-designed that keep the same specification but use Moore's law to do the same thing much cheaper. And they are exploiting a tangential side of Moore's Law: the storage.

True, but this doesn't change the fact that they would prefer everything else to stagnate so they can turn more profits at a lower operating cost.

I can't imagine how else Microsoft gets away with GROSSLY overcharging for their hard drives...

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I hope that nintendo loses so they will finally drop their rehashes and do original stuff.

I hope that nintendo loses so they will finally drop their rehashes and do original stuff.

You realize this would make more rehashes, right?

Why put out more money on an original idea that might not sell when you can put out a few Mario titles and make a few million in the process?

It's far easier and cheaper to do anything that has an established base than it is to go from scratch.

*raises fist in air* DAM IT EA STOP MAKING FUCKING REHASHES.Serious>I hope that their new -insert Football/Battlefield game here- games will fail horribly,and the rest of the rehshes.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Treblaine]

Please don't dismiss such sound arguments with "Reductio ad absurdim" fallacy by saying this well explained concept of the evolution of ideas is as nebulous and irrelevant as existentialism. I take it as a sign of desperation.

If you want to boil the concept of "originality" down to vague generalities, then yes, original thought is a meaningless and indefensible concept.

...

I tend to file that subject away next to "existentialism", "purpose" and "Life" as "Deep concepts that have no real practical value".

As for practical law: Patents are supposed to protect creators. It's about incentive and protection of one's work IN THE RELATIVE SHORT TERM (relative to the creator's lifespan), because as we move further and further along the "originality asymptote" competent/valuable ideas become increasingly valuable as distinction decreases.

Of course, because these ideas are valuable, other people *will* steal them. Fact of life.

That is a GOOD thing! If other humans didn't "steal" the idea of creating fire, where the hell would we be today? Where would we be if no one "stole" the idea of combining an internal combustion engine with 4 wheels and a gearbox i.e. an automobile. Where would we be if NO ONE ELSE could use the idea of a single multi-touch screen as the interface for a device, then only one company could sell an ENTIRE CATEGORY of products being smartphone and tablets.

And then there is the problem that any chump can patent an obvious IDEA yet the people who put the millions of dollars into the actual DESIGN have to pay them for coming up with the idea!!! Even if their design is so shoddy they could never get their idea to be something people would want to buy.

Here is the fact: The patent law have FAILED to protect Nintendo as a creator!

They CREATED THE NINTENDO WII! They put millions of dollars into it. And they have got ZERO patent protection for their creation.

Relative to the creators life span? THIRTY YEARS!?!? You think Nintendo can sit tight for THIRTY YEARS!!?! Have you ANY IDEA how much technology has advanced between 1975 and 2005. Can you even comprehend how much it will SURGE from 2005 to 2035!?!?

I'm GLAD Nintendo didn't get this patent, I'm just pissed that ThinkOptics got it.

Had we lived in a society more focused on open application than market exploitation, patent-protection wouldn't be necessary, but that's not the kind of world we live in.

Except that IS the world we live in! All the technology, techniques and processes are in some way adaptations and enhancements that the original creator never could have achieved! But if every patent holder got

The problem is Intellectual Property law has been so perverted by abuse of the wording of law to have it doing what it was never intended to do. directly prevent innovation.

Everything in society from privately funded research to public observations has a cost of some sort (even indirectly, ala "Tragedy of the Commons").

The only question is how aggregate or compartmentalized that cost is.

With the pace of technological development, and how many different components are combined, there are just too many parasites wanting their pint of blood. It's not making it worth

You know how big companies get around this: patent nuclear warfare.

What happens is Apple has a load of patents that they know everyone in the industry violates, so does Microsoft on everyone else, and Samsung, etc, etc. Everyone is violating everyone else's patents, but if say Microsoft tries to sue Apple for violating their patents, then Apple will sue Microsoft for violating theirs. Mutually assured destruction.

But the aim is they don't want nor even NEED patents! With how complicated and broad in function devices are everyone knows it is impossible to not violate patents, and to pay off each one of them would make the device cost 10-times more and you'd only get a tiny slim margin or a massive loss.

You can patent designs, you can't patent basic ideas.

There is a difference between copying the Wii-mote, every circuit, the camera type and everything. And copying the basic idea!

There is. And it's those differences that will be tested in court.

If Nintendo copied the design for specific components, it can be proven.
There are numerous places where the DESIGN (not the CONCEPT, the DESIGN) could have been copied within the software or even the Wiimote.

Stop endlessly hand-waiving important points as
"I can't answer that, but neither can you ask that, courts have a monopoly on this dialogue"

And the essential problem with this is ThinkOptics' "patent" is so incredibly vague and broad. It is NOT a design document. It is an idea, a concept. Yet they are suing them NOT for the design but the IDEA of using a camera tracking two points relative to a screen to ell where it is pointing. This is too basic.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Please don't dismiss such sound arguments with "Reductio ad absurdim" fallacy by saying this well explained concept of the evolution of ideas is as nebulous and irrelevant as existentialism. I take it as a sign of desperation.

I'll ignore points that aren't pertinent here. Anything I don't follow up on, I discard and refine.
Forgive me if I'm putting words into your mouth, but you seem to be under the impression that ANYONE WHO OWNS A DESIGN OR CONCEPT is a parasite to society.

When I find examples, you boil them down to vague generalities with no meaning and the barest of relevant context. You ignore what it IS and focus on what you think it should be which is fine and all but HARDLY RELEVANT TO SHOWING HOW NINTENDO OR THINKOPTIC'S INTENTIONS IN THIS COURT CASE.

That is a GOOD thing! If other humans didn't "steal" the idea of creating fire, where the hell would we be today?

This is what I mean; you stretch every point to fit your description in some desperate attempt to equate things.

There is a HUGE difference between an Integrated Circuit from the 1970s and today, yet the common concept of transistor-binary logic applies to all electronics.

And here I must assume that you will equate the IDEA of one to the specific design of another without bothering to consider.

Where would we be if no one "stole" the idea of combining an internal combustion engine with 4 wheels and a gearbox i.e. an automobile. Where would we be if NO ONE ELSE could use the idea of a single multi-touch screen as the interface for a device, then only one company could sell an ENTIRE CATEGORY of products being smartphone and tablets.

You're dancing around the issue here; we're talking about SPECIFICS in the case of patents here.

And then there is the problem that any chump can patent an obvious IDEA yet the people who put the millions of dollars into the actual DESIGN have to pay them for coming up with the idea!!! Even if their design is so shoddy they could never get their idea to be something people would want to buy.

It could easily go the other way where someone can't make any money off their hard work because others took it. Without protection, what's the incentive to go public with one's innovations then?
There isn't any apart from idealism, which is fine and feelgood, but good intentions don't put food on the table.

Here is the fact: The patent law have FAILED to protect Nintendo as a creator!

*sigh*
This is where you keep putting your fingers in your ears and dodging the fact that NINTENDO *COULD* HAVE STOLEN THOSE DESIGNS.

You cannot unilaterally argue in favor/against someone when the topic IS STILL AMBIGUOUS.
YOU CAN'T. It's idiocy in the highest order to do so.

They CREATED THE NINTENDO WII! They put millions of dollars into it. And they have got ZERO patent protection for their creation.

If they had zero patent protection, they wouldn't have even been able to take it to court.

Relative to the creators life span? THIRTY YEARS!?!? You think Nintendo can sit tight for THIRTY YEARS!!?! Have you ANY IDEA how much technology has advanced between 1975 and 2005. Can you even comprehend how much it will SURGE from 2005 to 2035!?!?

I find this completely irrelevant hyperbole. The idea is that a patent would protect its creator from immediate arbitrage and theft long enough to put it to use on the market. Most concepts are sold off to other firms if the original patent holder's firm goes under.

The laws need an overhaul to account for the ever-increasing speed of development, but the basic premise is still sound.

I'm GLAD Nintendo didn't get this patent, I'm just pissed that ThinkOptics got it.

Are you arguing about concepts or designs here? Because they aren't the same.
The degree of specifics matters quite a lot here.

I would ask what you would prefer would happen, but I'm going to guess that the answer is "everyone".

Except that IS the world we live in!

It isn't. Not in the fucking slightest.
We live in a world where corporate theft and consolidation reign.

Look around you and you will see that 99% of the world's resources and money are in the hands of a fraction of a percent of our population.

People in power break down their competition so they can consume/control them. It's the oldest hierarchy of society since before the written word, and it exists to this day.

All the technology, techniques and processes are in some way adaptations and enhancements that the original creator never could have achieved! But if every patent holder got

Uh...it just ends here.

The problem is Intellectual Property law has been so perverted by abuse of the wording of law to have it doing what it was never intended to do. directly prevent innovation.

I won't contest that the IP laws need a serious overhaul, but eliminating them entirely under that foolish concept of "Information WANTS to be free!" is just going to create new avenues of abuse in the wake of those it abolishes.

Why? People in power are assholes.

With the pace of technological development, and how many different components are combined, there are just too many parasites wanting their pint of blood. It's not making it worth

You know how big companies get around this: patent nuclear warfare.

This sounds interesting...I'll keep reading.

What happens is Apple has a load of patents that they know everyone in the industry violates, so does Microsoft on everyone else, and Samsung, etc, etc. Everyone is violating everyone else's patents, but if say Microsoft tries to sue Apple for violating their patents, then Apple will sue Microsoft for violating theirs. Mutually assured destruction.

Call me sadistic, but I'd welcome the economic destruction of those who wield such massive market control, actually.
It has a habit of keeping new blood out of the system, and that's something we most direly need in this period of utter stagnation..

But the aim is they don't want nor even NEED patents! With how complicated and broad in function devices are everyone knows it is impossible to not violate patents, and to pay off each one of them would make the device cost 10-times more and you'd only get a tiny slim margin or a massive loss.

It's the same logic as maintaining a police force.
Nobody is happy when they get busted, but it's better for all in the long run to have SOME shred of order instead of none at all.

Ideally, we wouldn't need patents, but again, we don't live in a world where we can implicitly trust each other.

Stop endlessly hand-waiving important points as
"I can't answer that, but neither can you ask that, courts have a monopoly on this dialogue"

*YOU* keep stating things you don't know as FACTS. (Nintendo's guilt or innocence; or whether this actually is patent trolling or a legitimate claim)
*YOU* were the one who jumped to conclusions on the BAREST of of details.

So don't you dare try to pin this "hand waiving" nonsense on me.

And the essential problem with this is ThinkOptics' "patent" is so incredibly vague and broad. It is NOT a design document. It is an idea, a concept.

Prove it. Prove that it's too vague.
In fact, if that's the case that goes to court, it will be disproved in a heartbeat because patents PROTECT SPECIFIC INFORMATION. They protect designs. They can be, and HAVE BEEN THROWN OUT FOR THE CLAIM BEING TOO VAGUE BEFORE.

This is what I mean about making conclusions based on "evidence" from a wordpress article. You can't say anything for certain because you have no idea what the evidence is yet.

 

[Starke]

I hope you don't mind my cutting in here.

Please don't dismiss such sound arguments with "Reductio ad absurdim" fallacy by saying this well explained concept of the evolution of ideas is as nebulous and irrelevant as existentialism. I take it as a sign of desperation.

I'll ignore points that aren't pertinent here. Anything I don't follow up on, I discard and refine.
Forgive me if I'm putting words into your mouth, but you seem to be under the impression that ANYONE WHO OWNS A DESIGN OR CONCEPT is a parasite to society.

When I find examples, you boil them down to vague generalities with no meaning and the barest of relevant context. You ignore what it IS and focus on what you think it should be which is fine and all but HARDLY RELEVANT TO SHOWING HOW NINTENDO OR THINKOPTIC'S INTENTIONS IN THIS COURT CASE.

That is a GOOD thing! If other humans didn't "steal" the idea of creating fire, where the hell would we be today?

This is what I mean; you stretch every point to fit your description in some desperate attempt to equate things.

There is a HUGE difference between an Integrated Circuit from the 1970s and today, yet the common concept of transistor-binary logic applies to all electronics.

And here I must assume that you will equate the IDEA of one to the specific design of another without bothering to consider.

For a quick snapshot of the kind of world where this makes sense... and as far as I can figure the only one. The idea that IP needs to be disregard for the communal good generally comes out of the piracy circles.

Also it's worth remembering that Treblaine is a Nintendo fanboy. Everything he reads is filtered through a world where Nintendo is some kind of god king of industry.

Where would we be if no one "stole" the idea of combining an internal combustion engine with 4 wheels and a gearbox i.e. an automobile. Where would we be if NO ONE ELSE could use the idea of a single multi-touch screen as the interface for a device, then only one company could sell an ENTIRE CATEGORY of products being smartphone and tablets.

You're dancing around the issue here; we're talking about SPECIFICS in the case of patents here.

He's also off the mark. He seems to refuse to understand that patents can, and are licensed out on a regular basis, in spite of me explicitly telling him this several times.

And then there is the problem that any chump can patent an obvious IDEA yet the people who put the millions of dollars into the actual DESIGN have to pay them for coming up with the idea!!! Even if their design is so shoddy they could never get their idea to be something people would want to buy.

It could easily go the other way where someone can't make any money off their hard work because others took it. Without protection, what's the incentive to go public with one's innovations then?
There isn't any apart from idealism, which is fine and feelgood, but good intentions don't put food on the table.

Funny thing. If you can prove in court that the person who filed and received the patent did so by snarfing your work, that's actually grounds to have it revoked and or reissued in your name, depending on circumstance.

I find it hilarious that he's accusing you of a straw man argument, when he's so goddamn obsessed with beating the shit out of the hay he's made for some fictional legalistic patent law system.

Here is the fact: The patent law have FAILED to protect Nintendo as a creator!

*sigh*
This is where you keep putting your fingers in your ears and dodging the fact that NINTENDO *COULD* HAVE STOLEN THOSE DESIGNS.

You cannot unilaterally argue in favor/against someone when the topic IS STILL AMBIGUOUS.
YOU CAN'T. It's idiocy in the highest order to do so.

It's actually in this case fanaticism. Where we get the "fan" for "fandumb".

As I told him before, because of the timing, Nintendo has to either have been trying out for team pants-on-head or this really is just a case of two groups working towards developing different things, and Nintendo having about as much legal expertise as our esteemed colleague.

They CREATED THE NINTENDO WII! They put millions of dollars into it. And they have got ZERO patent protection for their creation.

If they had zero patent protection, they wouldn't have even been able to take it to court.

Another funny thing. So, Nintendo presents the Wii at E3 the same week as this patent goes live. On it's face that's a pretty solid case to say ThinkOptic weren't "ripping off" anyone. But, here's where it gets weird. Nintendo hadn't filed a patent claim yet. Now, that means, either that they hadn't actually finished the tech, and the E3 Demo was an elaborate shell game (which isn't that uncommon for tech demos), or they'd deliberately decided not to patent it because they wanted to preserve the anticipation.

But the later doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, given that the patents could have been filed under the name of any subsidiary, and then transferred over to the main company once the production run went live.

Anyway, parenthesis aside, Nintendo received no patent protection because they elected not to follow up when their patent was denied. This wasn't the law failing anyone, this was a multinational corporation screwing the pooch when it came to legal filings.

Relative to the creators life span? THIRTY YEARS!?!? You think Nintendo can sit tight for THIRTY YEARS!!?! Have you ANY IDEA how much technology has advanced between 1975 and 2005. Can you even comprehend how much it will SURGE from 2005 to 2035!?!?

I find this completely irrelevant hyperbole. The idea is that a patent would protect its creator from immediate arbitrage and theft long enough to put it to use on the market. Most concepts are sold off to other firms if the original patent holder's firm goes under.

The laws need an overhaul to account for the ever-increasing speed of development, but the basic premise is still sound.

Again, Triblaine keeps refusing to believe a patent is anything other than a monopolistic and irrevocable control over an invention.

I'm GLAD Nintendo didn't get this patent, I'm just pissed that ThinkOptics got it.

Are you arguing about concepts or designs here? Because they aren't the same.
The degree of specifics matters quite a lot here.

I would ask what you would prefer would happen, but I'm going to guess that the answer is "everyone".

I think my brain just broke...

Except that IS the world we live in!

It isn't. Not in the fucking slightest.
We live in a world where corporate theft and consolidation reign.

Look around you and you will see that 99% of the world's resources and money are in the hands of a fraction of a percent of our population.

People in power break down their competition so they can consume/control them. It's the oldest hierarchy of society since before the written word, and it exists to this day.

I'm pretty sure we're not living in the same world he is.

All the technology, techniques and processes are in some way adaptations and enhancements that the original creator never could have achieved! But if every patent holder got

Uh...it just ends here.

Yeah, I don't even know. I can guess, but it would be terribly biased.

The problem is Intellectual Property law has been so perverted by abuse of the wording of law to have it doing what it was never intended to do. directly prevent innovation.

I won't contest that the IP laws need a serious overhaul, but eliminating them entirely under that foolish concept of "Information WANTS to be free!" is just going to create new avenues of abuse in the wake of those it abolishes.

Why? People in power are assholes.

And, because as much as we'd like to think otherwise, IP laws, almost all of them, side in favor of large corporate interests over individuals.

With the pace of technological development, and how many different components are combined, there are just too many parasites wanting their pint of blood. It's not making it worth

You know how big companies get around this: patent nuclear warfare.

This sounds interesting...I'll keep reading.

What happens is Apple has a load of patents that they know everyone in the industry violates, so does Microsoft on everyone else, and Samsung, etc, etc. Everyone is violating everyone else's patents, but if say Microsoft tries to sue Apple for violating their patents, then Apple will sue Microsoft for violating theirs. Mutually assured destruction.

Call me sadistic, but I'd welcome the economic destruction of those who wield such massive market control, actually.
It has a habit of keeping new blood out of the system, and that's something we most direly need in this period of utter stagnation..

I don't think anyone with half a brain can look at the current economic gestault and say it's sustainable (I'm not talking about ecological sustainability.) But, I seriously doubt that IP laws will be the tipping point.

But the aim is they don't want nor even NEED patents! With how complicated and broad in function devices are everyone knows it is impossible to not violate patents, and to pay off each one of them would make the device cost 10-times more and you'd only get a tiny slim margin or a massive loss.

It's the same logic as maintaining a police force.
Nobody is happy when they get busted, but it's better for all in the long run to have SOME shred of order instead of none at all.

Ideally, we wouldn't need patents, but again, we don't live in a world where we can implicitly trust each other.

No offense but you're talking slightly past each other here. Blaine is trying to argue that all of that bootleg hardware in China is impossible because... fuck, I'm not sure. Maybe, just because he hasn't heard of it, or doesn't realize that the quality disparity is because it's being churned out of some guy's garage instead of professional clean rooms. While you're talking about Lockean State of Nature.

Stop endlessly hand-waiving important points as
"I can't answer that, but neither can you ask that, courts have a monopoly on this dialogue"

*YOU* keep stating things you don't know as FACTS. (Nintendo's guilt or innocence; or whether this actually is patent trolling or a legitimate claim)
*YOU* were the one who jumped to conclusions on the BAREST of of details.

So don't you dare try to pin this "hand waiving" nonsense on me.

Yeah, he was pulling this same, "I know and trust Nintendo, and they would never do anything wrong" bullshit with me, and then trying to run back to abstract concepts about patents.

Honestly, in my opinion, the best approach is just to tell him "that's fucking irrelevant to this discussion" every time he tries to ***** out patents as an abstract.

And the essential problem with this is ThinkOptics' "patent" is so incredibly vague and broad. It is NOT a design document. It is an idea, a concept.

Prove it. Prove that it's too vague.
In fact, if that's the case that goes to court, it will be disproved in a heartbeat because patents PROTECT SPECIFIC INFORMATION. They protect designs. They can be, and HAVE BEEN THROWN OUT FOR THE CLAIM BEING TOO VAGUE BEFORE.

This is what I mean about making conclusions based on "evidence" from a wordpress article. You can't say anything for certain because you have no idea what the evidence is yet.

On the TO Patent being vague. Without reviewing the patents, and going off news articles, it looks like there are multiple patent infringements here. The only one I'm sure of is the motion processing system is triggering an infringement, but there are multiple infringements Nintendo's getting dinged for. Now, TO did say in some canned release, I'm not going to go digging for at the moment, that the Wii was in violation of nearly every patent associated with the Wavit, though I've no idea if that's legitimate or not.

As a general rule patents are required to be schematics. If you cannot replicate the device completely from the included diagrams, then you can't have a patent. So someone claiming the patent is "overly vague" sounds to me like someone who read the patent title, and assumed that was all there was to it.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind my interdiction too much, Atmos.