Nintendo and its patent

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SeVenD
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Nintendo and its patent

Post by SeVenD »

If some of you have not heard which seems to be the case emulating any Nintendo portable system is now illegal




Nintendo Patents GBA Emulation
Date: 29th Apr 2004 | Console: Nintendo | Posted by: Steven Rodriguez | Site: Planet GameCube

Nintendo has recently been awarded a patent for "a software emulator...emulating a handheld video game platform," or in English, any and all Game Boy emulators. Those listed in the patent give the examples of cell phones, PDAs and the video screens found in airplane seats, but in effect, the patent refers to just about anything that duplicates or enhances the Game Boy line's hardware via emulation.


Visit Planet GameCube To view the full Article




Now this really sucks :cry:
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Post by BlackAura »

In order to be infringing, an emulator would have to be doing everything mentioned in the patent, in exactly the same way. No well-known PC-based GBA emulator works the same way, mostly because they don't need to work on low capability hardware.
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Post by DaMadFiddler »

Yeah--as far as I could understand it, Nintendo's patent specifically refers to emulators that auto-switch emulation of various system components on and off depending on a ROM image's needs, in order to conserve resources for a platform that may be incapable of processing the entire system at once.
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Post by Rand Linden »

Whether or not any given software or hardware infringes doesn't really matter.

Rand.
SeVenD
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Post by SeVenD »

if you go look at the images in the patent is shows a person on a pc using a game pad
Dude your purple.
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Post by Nyarlathotep »

I suspect the patent was more likely aimed at GP32 users than any other non handheld based emulator
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Post by Rand Linden »

Patents are filed YEARS in advance of being published for all to see -- well before the GBA emulator in question (which, BTW, apparently isn't full-speed and doesn't have sound).

Based on the date of the patent, the emulator hadn't even been started when Nintendo filed.

Rand.
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