Chapter 1053 Patent Squatting

Japan, Kyoto.

As the most prosperous electronic game company in Japan, Nintendo's market value has surpassed several competitors such as Konami, Sega and Namco, and it has long been the largest electronic game company.

Nintendo, like other Japanese companies of this era, has developed rapidly with tenacity and hard work. Not only is it alone in Asia, it has even entered the United States, and it has entered the United States, and Alida The fight is inextricable.

Although Nintendo lags far behind Alida in arcade games, they are catching up in home electronic game consoles. Their current market share has exceeded 20%, which is a very impressive number!

The dominant player in arcades and video game consoles in the United States is still Alida.

Yalida is actually not that comfortable.

Their market share in arcade machines is as high as 68%, but this year, the Japanese game console company alliance launched "Xiangjiang Cube", which helped them seize 22% of the market share in half a year. It is really aggressive.

The alliance of game companies that previously provided various games to Alida did not only work on arcade machines. They also transplanted "Xiangjiang Cube" to their Sega game consoles, which also helped them occupy 10% of the market. share.

If this momentum continues and Yalida has no countermeasures, I am afraid that they will hand over the number one position of the United States as a game company.

It is said that the next step for Japanese manufacturers is to target Europe, another back garden of Alida, which makes them even more anxious.

Alida is anxious, and so is Nintendo.

The three companies Konami, Sega and Namco knew that they could not defeat Nintendo on their own, so they integrated themselves together and went out together to occupy the external market. This put great pressure on Nintendo.

As the head of the product development department, Gunpei Yokoi is under the greatest pressure. In recent months, he has been convening meetings with designers in the hope of coming up with new good games.

Hiroshi Yamauchi gave this confidant the greatest trust, asking for people and giving money, hoping that he would be able to perform brilliantly again soon and trample his competitors under his feet.

But today, Hiroshi Yamauchi made an internal call to Gunpei Yokoi, and asked Gunpei Yokoi to go to his office in a panic, which made Gunpei Yokoi, who was thinking about game ideas, feel inexplicably uneasy.

Arriving at Hiroshi Yamauchi's office, Junpei Yokoi saw Hiroshi Yamauchi standing in front of the window with his arms folded, his face solemn.

"President, what's wrong?" Yokoi Gunpei asked cautiously.

"Look at the documents on the table." Hiroshi Yamauchi said word by word, with uncontrollable anger in his tone.

Yokoi Gunpei thought it was the slow development of his department that made his boss unhappy, but he picked up the file and was stunned when he looked up.

"Japanese Patent Application Office's Reply Regarding Nintendo Co., Ltd.'s Patent Application."

patent application?

Yokoi Junpei frowned, but when he picked it up and turned it over, his expression suddenly changed.

"Impossible! This is impossible!!"

With Yokoi Gunpei's size and ambition, he actually said two impossible things in a row, which shows how horrified he was.

"I came up with this! I conceived this! No one knew about it before. How could it be like this? Who leaked it to him? Was it the work of people in the club?" Yokoi Junping's face turned red in anger.

No wonder he was angry.

This patent application returned by the patent office is the cross-key design that Yokoi Gunpei designed for the small handheld game console Game&Watch.

Since this compact game console is not suitable for using a large handle, in 1980, Gunpei Yokoi designed such a cross-key button for Game&Watch. Players can control up, down, left, and right movements with one hand. It is very convenient. convenient.

Because of such a genius design, Game&Watch***'s "Donkey Kong", which was released in January this year, gained great popularity in Japan. After entering the U.S. market, it also gained momentum. It easily sold millions of units, bringing Nintendo great reputation and high profits.

In this era, the Japanese already attach great importance to patents.

Even before the Game&Watch was released, Nintendo had compiled these patents into a book and sent them to apply for patents.

This time point was in late June of 1980.

The first stage of patent application in Japan lasts for 18 months. Now, after 18 months, the review results of their application will come out.

The reply from the Patent Office was “In view of the fact that a natural person Yin Jun (from Xiangjiang) has already applied for relevant patents before your company, your company’s request will be rejected in accordance with Japan’s domestic patent law...”

Yokoi Gunpei knew Yin Jun.

Originally, this person was working on Qilin Weekly, a super comic weekly, which contained many interesting comics.

So the boss Hiroshi Yamauchi went to Yin Jun with great interest and wanted to cooperate.

But faced with such a win-win cooperation, for some reason, Yin Jun actually refused in the end. This made the boss very angry when he came back and announced that he would block Yin Jun's development in the video game industry.

But unexpectedly, just over half a year later, Yin Jun launched a hit game that shocked the video game industry - "Hong Kong Cube", with its concise graphics, simple game rules, and endless fun of eliminating piles. , deeply captured game fans.

Nintendo has not yet made up its mind whether to buy the copyright to this game, but it does not want to be beaten to the punch by Sega and their alliance, so they directly buy it at a high price and then charge into the battle.

Hiroshi Yamauchi has been upset about this for a long time. If Nintendo had bought "Xiangjiang Cube", then with their original games, the situation in the United States would definitely be better now.

Gunpei Yokoi has great respect for the "Xiangjiang Cube" designed by Yin Jun.

In the past, people said that Yin Jun was a genius, and Gunpei Yokoi was still not convinced. But as soon as this game came out, it was simple yet classic, and you can never tire of playing it. This is definitely a genius initiative in the video game industry.

The most important thing is that Yin Jun is not from a major, he is from writing TV drama scripts. He can achieve such great achievements just by casually working in the video game industry. How can people not envy him?

But!

Now that something like this happened suddenly, Yokoi Junpei suddenly had a bad impression of Yin Jun.

No one knows the origin and inspiration of this cross key better than him.

There is no way that what he came up with from his mind coincided with Yin Jun's thoughts.

Now that Yin Jun actually applied earlier than himself, there was only one possibility, that is, he must have obtained the cross-key information through some channel, and thus preemptively registered the cross-key patent.

It's so bad!

How shameless!

After calming down, Yokoi Gunpei thought about it and said to Hiroshi Yamauchi: "President, we can't just let it go. We need to hold a press conference immediately to expose the face of this villain Yin Jun! We want everyone to know, He is a thief who steals!”

"Do you have evidence?" Yamauchi Pu asked coldly without looking back.

"I..." Gunpei Yokoi was speechless for a moment, but quickly replied: "Isn't it me who invented this thing? Everyone has seen it!"

"But they can't prove whether you stole it from Yin Jun." Hiroshi Yamauchi turned around, "Although it sounds ridiculous, the invention with this appearance is the most difficult thing to prove. ! It is no better than technology patents. We can show many previous research and development progress and various draft drawings as proof. They cannot imitate and fake these."

"Then I also have these draft drawings for my cross-key design!" Gunpei Yokoi said eagerly, "They are all kept in the club!"

"These are too simple. If Yin Jun applied in advance, it would be easy for him to draw a few more design drawings at will." Pu Yamauchi said, "And you also know that this kind of design patent has no technical content. It all depends on thinking. It has always been whoever registered it first. Even if we provide evidence to say that Yin Jun stole it, it will have no effect on the patent application."

Yokoi Gunpei sat on the sofa dejectedly, "Then let's forget it? Is my hard work just gone?"

Hiroshi Yamauchi looked at him and said, "Yokoi, what we are concerned about now is no longer this... You should think about what to do with our Game & Watch in the future? You know, the cross-key patent will soon enter the publicity stage! Once Yin Jun files a lawsuit, not only will all the products we sold before have to be recycled, but we will also not be able to use similar designs in the future! This is the most serious problem!!"

Yokoi Gunpei was suddenly shocked.

Game & Watch is a small handheld game console that he led the development and research of.

Although there is currently only one "Donkey Kong" game in it, Nintendo is already developing other games for this platform.

If Yin Jun applied for a global ban on the cross keys of Game & Watch due to patent infringement, it would be terrible, and many design languages ​​would have to be replaced! Many program settings also need to be changed!

The cross key has been recognized by everyone as the most convenient and convenient operation procedure. If you want to replace other control keys, it will be a very big problem.

More importantly, game fans are already very accustomed to using the D-pad. What will happen to their habits once they suddenly change? If Yin Jun sells the cross-key patent to Sega and the others, will a large number of game fans switch to Sega and the others because of this...

These are all issues that need to be carefully considered! !