I know I'm a month late for this article, but I thought I'd throw in a few comments, as I have experience with patents.
First, listing a prior patent in another patent doesn't mean you own it. It just means that its an earlier patent that has some relation to your patent application. Midway still owns the rights to the Goschy patent. You can check it out at www.uspto.gov, under Products -> All about assignments. Its very unlikely that Nintendo would get this patent and not get it listed there.
Second, the US follows a "first to invent" rule. This means that if you have the patent, you invented it first. If someone filed for the patent before you did but you can prove you invented it first, you get the patent (assuming you challenge them for it).
Third, it takes very little to get a patent if its an improvement over what was done before. There are certain requirements you have to meet, but you don't have to have something totally new and unheard of to get a patent for it. So the fact that the Wii operates similarly to what he described doesn't mean that they don't deserve a patent for what they made. I'm not saying they should get a patent, but that you can't judge based on superficial similarities.
Lastly, its very common for companies to make you give them the rights to anything you invent while you're working for them. So if this guy got the shaft, there are millions of others getting the shaft every day.
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I know I'm a month late for this article, but I thought I'd throw in a few comments, as I have experience with patents.
First, listing a prior patent in another patent doesn't mean you own it. It just means that its an earlier patent that has some relation to your patent application. Midway still owns the rights to the Goschy patent. You can check it out at www.uspto.gov, under Products -> All about assignments. Its very unlikely that Nintendo would get this patent and not get it listed there.
Second, the US follows a "first to invent" rule. This means that if you have the patent, you invented it first. If someone filed for the patent before you did but you can prove you invented it first, you get the patent (assuming you challenge them for it).
Third, it takes very little to get a patent if its an improvement over what was done before. There are certain requirements you have to meet, but you don't have to have something totally new and unheard of to get a patent for it. So the fact that the Wii operates similarly to what he described doesn't mean that they don't deserve a patent for what they made. I'm not saying they should get a patent, but that you can't judge based on superficial similarities.
Lastly, its very common for companies to make you give them the rights to anything you invent while you're working for them. So if this guy got the shaft, there are millions of others getting the shaft every day.