If you follow the logic that makes Hertfordshire East of England, then Greater London should also be East of England.

Hitchin isn’t East of England, it’s in Northamptonshire and west of London centre.

I still have one that isn’t paywalled (gratis) but I don’t think it’s had any new games in a while. I hardly ever play on it though and haven’t kept up much.

Looking it up, Palworld was announced in 2021, but not released (under early access) until 2024. However they were apparently designing the game back in 2020, if not earlier.

When accessed by BleepingComputer, however, the link returned a 404 (Not Found), and according to several others who tried to access the URL, no content ever existed at the location from the beginning.

This really doesn’t mean anything, it’s not unheard of for malicious actors to not set up their C&C servers until later on. This has actually been exploited by law enforcement in other cases also, they simply registered the domain themselves and took control away ahead of the attacker.

There’s a risk with setting up the C&C that it could be traced back to the attackers. By not setting it up until it’s needed you avoid that risk until it becomes necessary.

Obviously this depends on the exact details of the patents, which are all in Japanese, as well as the specifics of Japanese patent laws.

However, patents only last for 20 years, and they are undermined by public disclosure before filing. The first Pokemon game came out more than 20 years ago. However^2 not all of the features in the patents were present in the original games. All 3 patents were first filed in 2021, well after many of these features were established.

The first patent is about aiming something and entering into a fight mode. This wasn’t in the original game. Aiming at enemies and entering a fight mode almost certainly existed before Pokemon (Final Fantasy perhaps). Furthermore, Palworld doesn’t really have a fight mode - it isn’t a turn based game but real time. Throwing a sphere is just one way to start a “battle” but there is no mode change between “explore” and “battle” modes because they are functionally the same in Palworld. Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, which were all around in 2018, would seem to amount to public disclosure that undermines this patent.

The second patent has more detail about catching Pokemon outside of battles. This might have some elements of Palworld gameplay in it. However, again we have prior art that predates the patent.

The third patent is about riding characters. This has certainly existed in other games before Pokemon and before this patent. Off the top of my head, World of Warcraft had you riding mounts, Final Fantasy had you riding Chocobos, and Mega Man let you ride Rush.

However the big issue with all of these is that these challenges are always better off done before the patent is granted. With the patents established it is a massive uphill struggle trying to get them withdrawn. Given that each charge is only for $33,000, so about $100,000 total, I expect a settlement will be reached instead of going on this fight.

I don’t think he quite did that, actually. From memory he ran a few “shops”, but these didn’t really sell anything and were just download portals to install pirated games directly from the internet (rather than downloading to a PC first and then copying to an SD card or installing over USB). However, I think he did take donations for early access to new titles, which would have been hard to get elsewhere at first.

Yeah I read this article on another post, I’m not sure that’s the whole story.

From what I remember, he was running a few “shops”. These don’t actually sell games, but they can be accessed by a piece of homebrew software on the switch, and then you connect to the “shop” to download games directly to the device - this was done instead of manually copying install files to the SD card, installing, and then deleting the original files to save space; or instead of installing over USB. The shops were much easier, not least because removing the SD card to copy games from a PC required a reboot, and rebooting an OG hacked Switch could be kind of a pain.

I think the “sales” he did were actually just donations that got you early access to titles that weren’t widely available yet. However, it’s generally when you start taking money for these things that the shit hits the fan and the hammer comes down.

He didn’t just use the product he paid for in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody, he sold pirated Nintendo Switch games. This is literally at the start of the article.

It then becomes very easy to say he took revenue from Nintendo (the “they wouldn’t have bought it if it cost money” argument doesn’t apply), but above all selling pirated material is a shitty thing to do.

I sure hope they don’t plan on having more than 2 anniversaries.

Yeah the newer they are, the more frivolous they are - especially since you could argue the release of games using those patents amounts to public disclosure.

However, you’re still left in the situation where an established patent is very solid and difficult to challenge, even when it should never have been granted in the first place.

5 mil yen is about $32k. In total they’re suing for about $100k.

I would imagine the 3rd patent at the very least should be invalidated - riding characters in video games predates Pokemon (MegaMan riding Rush comes to mind, as well as World of Warcraft [although I don’t know if the patent predates WOW mounts]). However the nature of patents is that once they’re granted they are very difficult to dismiss.

The other two are more tricky. Throwing balls at something us a uniquely Pokémon idea, I think, and the aiming one would come down to the technicalities of the patent itself, which is all Japanese to me.

Microsoft are unlike Facebook and Google in that they make you pay for the software they use to steal your data.

My experience is limited, but not no experience. In any case, it’s not like Windows 10 will be immediately unusable when support ends.

What are your plans when end of life /support comes to Windows ten?

Switch to Linux and run virtual machines when I need to use Windows.

Right now I don’t quite have the drive to do it, but an end to support for Windows 10 would push me over the edge. I just can’t stand Windows 11, not even because of all the bullshit but just the way it mandates the UI structure - last time I tried it my dealbreaker was that you can’t just have it always display all taskbar icons, you have to manually force each one to show. If a new icon comes up, it will be hidden.

I’m sure I’ll be there with you soon enough.

/me Laughs in Windows 10.

Thanks, yet another reason why my example was a bit off hah.

If the US only awarded actual damages like most of the rest of the world, instead of inflated punitive damages, then this would pretty much be a non-issue. Rightsholders in the US see targeting copyright infringement as a source of income, not a necessary indemnity.

I said you came in to correct me but didn’t actually deliver any corrections. You just talked about the things you know.

I didn’t say the same thing you said, I provided the correction that you left out.