The Nintendo lawsuit you’ve never heard about

Nintendo's legal department is famous - the company has sent DMCA takedowns to Mario fangames, Zelda mods, and more. But here's a story you've probably never heard of - an incident where Nintendo NEEDED to sue another company! I promise, it was for the good of the gaming industry. Let me tell you about the morally GOOD Nintendo lawsuit!

SOURCES

CREDITS
Japanese arcade footage licensed for use from Lyle Hiroshi Saxon:

Object in Mario's hand icon via Freepik from Flaticon

[ThomasGameDocs]

Before you comment - yes, we say "patent" differently in the UK. I am from the UK, so I say the word the British way.

[katiemcwrath]

Honestly, finding out that video game companies, while real particular about what games can play on which systems and about their IP, having this code of honor to protect each other in the creative process, is kind of beautiful. It warmed my heart.

[Kat]

i opened the notification by accident and it started playing thomas game docs and i noticed youtube was open so I guess im watching this video now

[nnhoffingg]

You break the Code of Honour, The Code of Honour breaks YOU!

[sncy]

Europe does it right: Software patents don't exist there, only copyright.
This means that anybody can recreate, for example, a game mechanic, as long as they do it without copying any code or artwork.

[joopvanhedel]

The internet is the internet, so even fan games can never be completely removed. I downloaded pokemon uranium to my Steam deck literally last week and it was done in 2 minutes

[nav]

two examples i can think of where game companies have enforced their patents against other games companies are 1. using the word Edge in a videogame title, and 2. loading screen minigames

[EnigmaticGentleman]

Pokemon Uranium was only down for like 2 weeks, in fact development continued under a different team for many years afterwards. Not trying to defend TPC, but it really bugs me that literally nobody mentions that part of the story.

[radicaltrafficcone]

I have to vent this out somewhere. I spent this morning going into the rabbit hole of nintendo lawsuits through tgd videos and such, I found out about this specific law suit. I spent ages, researching and digging up patents to find out what was going on and lo and behold, you uploaded a video litterally an hour later explaining everything for me.

[Peepimus]

1:08 - I’ll never forget Pokémon Brick Bronze…!

[MrNateM]

This was great! You've always differentiated your channel by covering topics that haven't been done to death elsewhere and require a bit more research. This video is maybe the single best example of that style paying off.

[Scorbunzx]

0:43 they have never been on google images have they.

[triforceeternal]

meanwhile Konami patented the concept of flashing, timed targets for DDR arrows (not the scrolling arrows themselves, although they probably tried) and still maintains their exclusivity on that feature across arcade rhythm games. very classy

[Nintenblox]

Makes sense we haven’t heard of this lawsuit. There’s so many I can’t keep track.

[fattiger]

Copyright and trademark are very important. Intellectual property deserves the same respect and reverence as physical property. The problem is that copyright law tends to be kind of nebulous and basic education doesn't do a very good job explaining it. And governments don't seem to really have good standards as to what is protected and what is infringement.

At the end of the day, I support creators' rights to enjoy the fruits of their labour and those rights need to be protected. But I do concede that copyright holders (usually giant corporations) often go beyond what should be allowed.

[LeoFlipnotes]

14:47 are those tomodatchi collection voices?!

[metazoxan]

The thing to always keep in mind is in many cases if you don't defend a patent you can set precedent to make it harder to defend.

That's not to say Nintendo never gets carried away ... but at this point their company is ... rather dependant on their established IP library. So I can understand why they protect their IPs like a mother protecting their children.

[EcyGuy]

Me: Hey you know that Mario game
Nintendo: *C E A S E A N D D E S I S T S A N D C R I E S I N R I C H*

[kurux]

the funny things about nintendo dmca is, mostly of the time are trolls using nintendo name, the other time are just some smartass asking for money for their nintendo fangame lol

[bkmorrison]

So, with the insinuation being that Nintendo sued to stop Colopl from abusing their patents, has Colopl stopped telling people they had to license their touch control system? Does Colopl still own that patent?