Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

Re:Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit by Dalewyn on Thursday August 25, 2022 @01:12AM (#32589773)

The Japanese video game industry does this in an ad-hoc way.

Smaller game studios ask bigger companies, like Nintendo, to register some patents in their stead so the bigger companies can keep them safe with their elite team of lawyers. The bigger companies like Nintendo in turn gatekeep the patents from trolls and abusers, letting the industry at-large use the patents for a greater good while suing anyone who doesn't play nice into oblivion.

It's not perfect, and it certainly only works because businesses in Japanese society generally view each other as friendly rivals rather than outright enemies, but it's an ingenius solution to a legitimate social problem.

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Re:Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit by mschuster91 on Thursday August 25, 2022 @06:23AM (#32591797)

So basically because the official environment (laws and courts) doesn't do its job, large private entities end up taking over in what is essentially a protection racket. Sounds a bit too much like the Mafia IMHO.

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Re:Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit by hnhamdani2 on Thursday August 25, 2022 @06:57AM (#32592054)

The more you realize that for Japanese society, it's been the same as how it was since a long time. Zaibatus/Keiretsu is just a modern evolution of feudal era Daimyo/Samurai. As a rule of of thumb, they're trying to good for the masses but indeed they are (benevolent) dictator in some ways.

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Re:Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit by ballenf on Thursday August 25, 2022 @10:02AM (#32593841)

Seems like it's ok to let societies draw different boundaries around what the government's "job" is.

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Re:Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit by r00fus on Thursday August 25, 2022 @02:14PM (#32597714)

I think what mschuster91 is saying is that there are regulatory functions that, if an impartial government doesn't do it, will be done by big corporations in the space, or it's just a free-for-all where trolls roam free.

Exercise to the reader as to whether the EU, US or Japanese model is most effective.

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Re:Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit by WesolyKubeczek on Thursday August 25, 2022 @04:19AM (#32591041)

Doesn't OIN work in pretty much the same fashion?

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Re:Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit by matiasfernandez on Thursday August 25, 2022 @06:30PM (#32600768)

Is that why Nintendo has a significant number of obvious patents despite prior art? For example, recently they patented "time manipulation of objects in game".

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