This article takes the interesting perspective of an anti-consumer bootlicker.
Full text:
Nintendo appears to be on a patent-registering spree as it files over 30 patents related to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
As reported by Automaton, from July 10 - August 4, Nintendo made public a total of 32 patents - 31 of those relating to Tears of the Kingdom. It’s not rare or even surprising for Nintendo to claim ownership of its ideas and prevent anyone from copying its homework but the amount of patents, as well as what exactly it is Nintendo has decided to patent, is what’s interesting about this lot of filings.
For instance, Link’s Ultrahand and Fuse abilities, some of the game’s mechanics, NPCs’ abilities, and even its loading screens have all been filed for patent by Nintendo. Some of the other elements of the game Nintendo wants to keep safe include Riju’s lightning attack and some of the technical elements of the game that allow Link to interact with the world around him (eg: standing on moving objects, gripping onto ledges, etc.)
It’s interesting to see what Nintendo wants to keep for itself in potential future iterations of the Zelda series or just its other games in general - especially since the majority of these things would go totally unnoticed by the average player. We’ve seen a lot of patents linked to well, Link, in the past but this is the first bout we’ve found after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, so they probably don’t hint towards anything in terms of future content.
It actually makes a lot of sense why Nintendo would be so protective over the inner workings of its game (although this isn’t limited to just Tears of the Kingdom or Zelda games in general). For starters, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has already sold two-thirds of what Breath of the Wild managed in six years - just in case you forgot, the Breath of the Wild sequel was released less than three months ago. So it’s probably fair that Nintendo doesn’t want anyone stealing its ideas for their own games.
This just ain’t how patent law works.
Nintendo has IP lawyers. They have to, at their scale, because they will constantly be bombarded by patent trolls, licensing companies etc. trying to extract profit out of Nintendo. So, like any other large business, they hire IP lawyers to protect themselves.
Most patent disagreements are resolved by cross-licensing. That’s where one business says, in response to a law suit, “oh, but you’re actually using 6 of our patents, so maybe we can come to an agreement”. A patent is both a shield and a sword. Even against trolls they can be useful, as they can be used to argue against troll arguments, if it gets to court, or pull in other business to the defense, if helpful.
IP lawyers know this. So they extract every patent they can out of everything a company does, as a way to build up the IP bank.
So, I highly doubt “Nintendo wants to prevent others” bla bla. It’s just IP lawyers doing their job.
I’ve sat in MANY discovery sessions with IP lawyers where they push and prod at software I, or my team, have written. “So, what you’ve effectively done is written a unique data structure to connect elements in memory?!”, “no, it’s a linked list, next question please”.