• @parpol
    link
    6114 hours ago

    It is probably something stupid like Nintendo having a patent for “pocket” in names, since Pokemon is “pocket monsters”

    Patents in videogames should be banned.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      54 hours ago

      I agree, but I think all intellectual property laws should be repealed. I came to the conclusion that patent, copyright, and trademark are all varying levels of bad years ago and I think it clearly holds the human race and human progress back by limiting creative iteration.

    • Joe
      link
      fedilink
      2211 hours ago

      That would be trademark infringement. Patents are much more nefarious.

      • Carighan Maconar
        link
        fedilink
        37 hours ago

        That’s genuinely not as simple as you think it is. You realize there was a time before modern patent law, yes?

        • Lux
          link
          fedilink
          146 hours ago

          Patents should be banned ❤️

          • Carighan Maconar
            link
            fedilink
            74 hours ago

            Sure, but how do you solve the problems that patents in turn solved (and brought new problems with them of course)? That as kinda my point, if we just ban patents we can just look back to know which problems we need to solve in another way.

          • Paradoxvoid
            link
            fedilink
            English
            176 hours ago

            Patents are (at their core) a good thing. It protects little Jimmy Inventor from putting hours and his blood, sweat and tears into coming up with a novel invention, only for some big corpo to see it, steal the idea and bully Jimmy out of the market.

            Jimmy has legal recourse to sue the big corpo if he has a patent, whereas without one he has nothing.

            Just because the system’s been gamed (especially in the US) doesn’t mean it’s impossible to reform, and is currently still better than nothing.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              32 hours ago

              Patents are not, at their core, a good thing. They are nice for an idealized and transient scenario, but the reality of capitalism is that the vast, vast majority of investment, production, etc. are done by a handful of large companies, and that includes R&D. Patents are, in reality, overwhelmingly one of the many tools large corporations have to shut out upstarts. In short, it entrenches the power of monopolies, trusts, and similar large businesses.

              And that’s without even starting on how the law can be abused and, with the way our legal systems work, it is fundamentally more abusable for the side that has more money and can afford top corporate lawyers to concoct convenient arguments, leaving little Jimmy in the dust.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              43 hours ago

              I agree. The system is screwed up, but that doesn’t mean the intention was bad. Having no patent rights just means that whoever has more money will win. Big corps have the resources in both money and infrastructure to bring anything anybody else invents to market faster.

              So today, big corps win. If we do away with the system, then big corps win. The only solution is reform. Or consumer knowledge and the ability to resist buying something in protest (which has failed time and time again which is evident by the big corps existence).

            • Jojo, Lady of the West
              link
              fedilink
              135 hours ago

              In the US, every employment contract has a line where any “invention” of an employee belongs to the company, so

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              04 hours ago

              Patents as well as intellectual property laws, are entirely unnatural and only exist to prop up Capital.

              Its against human nature to prevent cultural iteration.