Re: [NTLK] Nintendo Patent and Newtendo?

From: Eckhart Köppen (eck1001_at_gmx.net)
Date: Fri Mar 12 2004 - 08:08:44 PST


On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 10:02:14 -0500, Eagan Rackley wrote:
> Do you guys think that this patent relates to Newtendo?

I think the whole situation depends a bit on how well potential scare
tactics would work here. It is not uncommon for the patent/rights
holder to threaten legal action, knowing that the other person doesn't
have the legal resources to research and answer properly. The letter
from Nintendo looked actually quite tame in that respect.

Fundamentally, I think their patent does not apply since it refers to
some specific methods of dynamically switching the emulation method
depending on the game or target platform to be emulated. Another issue
which comes up more and more is a patented copy protection scheme. Even
though reverse engineering would be no problem, the solution built with
the knowledge from reverse engineering would infringe patents. An
example would be a patented encryption algorithm. But this does not
seem to apply here either.

> I'm going to take down any links to rom
> images, and any mention of them. Juust better safe than sorry :)

That might be a wise thing to do. And you can always use other
"distribution channels" ;)

An interesting aspect in this whole mess is that this is a US patent. I
doubt it would be currently enforcable e.g in Europe, but it seems that
the developer in this case is in Canada. This sounds like there would
be a way to enforce US patents in Canada, or maybe an equivalent patent
exists for Canada.

Eckhart

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