vern's Profile

Member since May 17, 2008

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    vern

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  1. Comment - Tiny game controller company wrests $21 M from giant Nintendo

    (May 17, 2008 - 7:52 PM)

    GD, see my comment above. You aren't looking at all the sides of this thing.

    Inventing "on paper" as you say is the most important part of any product development process.

    In fact, thats how it works at a big company. Some guy (or a team) creates a specification for the invention, including text and diagram details.

    The problem is, the lone inventor doesn't have all the resources of a big company and needs a way to protect an invention.

    Unless you want just the big fat cats controlling all the new products we get, I'd suggest you consider the other side of this.

    As a result, sometimes a lawsuit will happen that might look silly. Oh, well, little price to pay. Big companys can afford to deal with it.

    Plus, seems like a judge thinks Anascape did have a valid patent.

  2. Comment - Tiny game controller company wrests $21 M from giant Nintendo

    (May 17, 2008 - 7:44 PM)

    daq: you wouldn't feel that way if you had an invention.

    And, by the way, a judge decided that the Anascape patents were not ambiguous.

    Patent law is a very complicated issue. And while I agree that sometimes these things seem silly, many times they are not.

    Big companies like MS and Nintendo actually do much more harm (my opinion) by sqashing little companies with patents they sit on and never develope. The big guys use patents as negotiation points with other big companies as well.

    Building a working prototype of many products is VERY expensive due to customized equipment and materials costs. In certain cases I have seen it cost millions just to get a prototype.

    So do you expect some small inventor with a good idea to find the money to make an expensive prototype? No, they have to go find the $$ to do it. And how can you safely get money if you don't have a patent to protect your rights.

    Guys, just because you love some some product that Nintendo makes doesn't mean they don't have to pay when they tred on someone else's invention.

  3. Comment - Tiny game controller company wrests $21 M from giant Nintendo

    (May 17, 2008 - 7:36 PM)

    Sorry Austin, patents are way more complicated than that. First of all, its unlikely you can just "patent a controller". You can only patent specific aspects of controllers.

    Don't let the brief quotes of the patent text in the article fool you into thinking thats all that was included in the document. Patents are usually (today) many pages long with detailed text and specific diagrams.