Re:Did Nintendo download a Mario ROM and sell it back to us?
by eridius on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:48PM
(#13464735)
No, the header cannot be protected. File formats cannot themselves be protected at all. What you can do is patent algorithms that are used to produce the data for the format. But there's nothing in the 16-byte iNES header that would qualify for patent protection (and of course the format author didn't seek protection in the first place).
As for ROM ripping tools, you're assuming that Nintendo took someone else's non-commercial ROM ripping tool and used it, instead of dumping the ROM themselves. Besides, where do you even get the info that "every ROM ripping tool" is for Non-commercial purposes? I just searched for a NSES rom dumper and found something called the Kazzo cartridge "INL Retro" NES Dumper-Programmer and there's no sign anywhere on the page or the readme.txt of it being restricted to non-commercial purposes.
> Source: I own patents
Then you should know that you actually have to file for patents in order to have them, which the author of the iNES format didn't do (and couldn't even do, because there's nothing in there that qualifies for patent protection).
As for ROM ripping tools, you're assuming that Nintendo took someone else's non-commercial ROM ripping tool and used it, instead of dumping the ROM themselves. Besides, where do you even get the info that "every ROM ripping tool" is for Non-commercial purposes? I just searched for a NSES rom dumper and found something called the Kazzo cartridge "INL Retro" NES Dumper-Programmer and there's no sign anywhere on the page or the readme.txt of it being restricted to non-commercial purposes.
> Source: I own patents
Then you should know that you actually have to file for patents in order to have them, which the author of the iNES format didn't do (and couldn't even do, because there's nothing in there that qualifies for patent protection).