Quasi-patch. Legal Issues?

[knizz]

For a long time I wanted to make a Pokemon-clone and I always failed at making a nice conversion-pipeline for the images (PNG->GBA LZ77). Finally I came up with a solution also solves the copyright problem: I just copy the already compressed data from the original ROM into my ROM. Kinda like a patch. Just more complicated.

However the graphics aren't the only thing about Pokemon that are protected. Game Freak has patents on the Game Mechanics or certain Ideas of the game (which I can obviously not "copy" using a patching-software).

Google Patents gave me way too many results: https://www.google.com/patents?q=pokemon
And they are hard to understand: https://www.google.com/patents?id=kMwHAAAAEBAJ&printsec=claims&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
In this patent (in which they reveal a lot about the ROM btw ;) ) they claim (among 10-20 other things) "A game machine for executing a game program of a type having an associated display wherein a player object is moved within a displayed territory to encounter a character, comprising: a program storage for storing a game program; a clock for generating time related information; an operation control member actuated by a player for controlling the display of a player object; and a processor for executing said program to vary a displayed image based on the operation of said operation control member, wherein said game program storage stores a program for evaluating a time related criteria using said time related 10 information, and for varying the likelihood for a character to appear on the game display in a portion of said territory based at least in part on the evaluation of said time related criteria."

I think I'm misunderstanding something because other games do that too. Right? Or is it actually illegal to make time-dependent appearance-probability nowadays?!
If you look closely you'll see that not the program is subject of the claim but the hardware. If I made a PC-Version of Pokemon my computer would violate the patent but not my program?!

What does it mean? And how is it possible to make a 100% legal Pokemon-clone?

PS: This is one of the reason why I think that the "usual" ROM-Patches are useless. Because Nintendo can still sue the maker for 100 other things.

 

[miksy91]

Just re-write the engine to make it so people can't tell whether it could be a hack of a pokemon game or for example some super mario game :P

 

[IIMarckus]

Patents are a huge mess. Don't even bother getting advice here; talk to a lawyer.

Do note the difference between patents, trademarks, and copyrights. .ips patches typically don't violate copyright (technically) because they don't usually contain copyrighted data, but they could still be violating copyright based on the concept of derivative works. Any Pokémon hack named "Pokémon" will be violating trademarks. And you already looked at patents.

There is already an attempt at a Pokémon clone for GBA, called OpenPoké (made by Kawa). I haven't looked at it in several years and don't know the status. I do remember he vertically flipped the Poké Ball images, because red‐over‐white Poké Balls are a trademark.

I think I'm misunderstanding something because other games do that too. Right? Or is it actually illegal to make time-dependent appearance-probability nowadays?!

You see this kind of thing a lot in the computer industry. Big companies own patents over things other big companies implement, but don't sue because those other companies also have patents. In other words, mutually assured destruction. See, for example, a case of Apple vs. Sun Microsystems:

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve [Jobs] called my office to let me know the graphical effects were "stepping all over Apple's IP." (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, "I'll just sue you."

My response was simple. "Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?" Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I'd help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they'd found inspiration. "And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too." Steve was silent.

 

[Elite Trainer Red]

So let me get this right?

In the industry it is "Patent this idea so that I can steal others ideas and then if they try to sue me i will use my patent to threaten to sue them there by blackmailing them into a truce?"

 

[IIMarckus]

So let me get this right?

In the industry it is "Patent this idea so that I can steal others ideas and then if they try to sue me i will use my patent to threaten to sue them there by blackmailing them into a truce?"

Basically, yeah.