• @BigPotato@lemmy.world
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    1512 hours ago

    Imagine if you had a hammer and decided to use it to hit a nail and then someone came along and said “I see you’re using my method to build a house! Pay up!”

    Well, you can’t patent something like that!

    Imagine you open up a game engine, any engine, and decide you need to point to an objective so you decide to use an arrow. A game company says “You’re using our method to identify objectives! Pay up!” and that one is a unique mechanic?

    How long has humanity been using arrows to point to things? How can you patent it just because it’s a digital arrow?

      • @BigPotato@lemmy.world
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        136 minutes ago

        The ludicrousness is the point. “Capture a creature in a ball”… How close is that to Red Dead’s lasso? Could Nintendo patent capturing a creature with a rope? Does anyone hold that patent yet? No, it would be silly to try to patent something like that - yet at one point I’m certain it was someone’s “technique” while everyone else was jumping on the horses back like Breath of the Wild.

        • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          21 minutes ago
          1. This thread started with a general statement about patent laws with a glaring innacuracy that it applied to noncommercial applications and in perpetuity. That is what I argued against. I fully support PalWorld.

          2. If that were Nintendo’s justification they would lose instantly. You can patent and/or claim intellectual property for very specific named designs, but you cannot do so for vague narrative concepts. Example: PokeBalls in various colorschemes is a go, but “a ball that capture creatures” is not good enough to patent.

        • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          -11
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          10 hours ago

          No, the very premise of that user’s analogy is that he isn’t profiting from it. If somebody invented hammering nails literally this year and a company came in selling it as a product without permission, then it would be comparable. It reads as if he failed to read my comment entirely but still replied with multiple paragraphs.

          The game development analogy is better, floating arrows about characters heads was actually patented, but it was widely criticized and it expired in 2019. Plus I already took offense to simple mechanisms and especially certain software and firmware solutions.

            • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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              -810 hours ago

              Countless buildings would never be built if you didnt invent hammer and nails, being paid royalties for a few years by large businesses who make use of it seems pretty fair.

                • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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                  10 hours ago

                  We’re very clearly not talking about history, we’re talking about the ridiculous hypothetical of if Hammering Nails to build Houses was patented today.

                  I can understand why you’d think that was fucking silly, my original response to it was “jfc this guy”

                  • @TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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                    10 hours ago

                    Yeah pretty much, that comment set the mood. I’m cool, I hope you are too.

                    It is interesting as a thought experiment if very basic human improvements could have been shut out from other people using them.

                    What if, for example, Plato was able to “copy right” his ideas. Or if any of the ideas from the Renaissance where prevented from being iterated on. Would we have the scientific method today?

                    Edit: Electricity? Pfft have fun with only one person owning the right to use it for 175 years. Next to no improvements for almost two centuries.