Gameboy Emus Now Illegal?

[Wolfsclaw]

I wonder if the gameboy/gbc/gba emus for the gp32 are now all illegal (at least in USA) due to the patent from nintendo?
not that anyone would stop playing gb roms on his gp32 due to this, but anyway thats smth i want to know

and whats with Goomba , PocketGB and the other GB emus for GBA?

 

[Delsabre]

I'm still playing it.

GB emus for GBA are so you can load up your flash cart with ROMs of games you don't own.

 

[Wolfsclaw]

i know what you can with goomba etc. h34r:

all i want to know if theyre all illegal (as they are gb/gbc/gba emus for a console you can take with you (gba&gp32)) and not if you play them

 

[taras]

All Nintendo emus will be illegal once the patent goes through (it might already have gone through).

 

[crazeeplaya]

If you say so :rolleyes:

 

[ilarri]

taras,some info for you, and for the others:
i was yesterday speaking with a law student,who was interesed in this case (he has a gp32).
He says that the US patent its only for the United States Of America,Canada and Mexico.Its a "local" patent.
i explain this info: if you patent something only in europe,for example, and a bad company steal your product, but make it in asia,for example,if you havent a patent in asia,you CANT make nothing.
So if in USA the gba and others emulators are under patent,this patent hasent nothing to do in europe,because its a local patent.
Nintendo will NEVER obtain a World patent,so if you live in Spain,France,Germany,UK,Italy,Luxemburg,Holland,Finnland ant the rest of europe,althoug russia and far east,you can emulate the gba system, or game boy color,or any portable nintendo system without have the nintendo scream around you.
If US are stupid for this stupid laws against emulation,its HIS problem,NO an europan problem,you know.

so please,still working in nintedo portable systems for gp32!!!

=)

 

[frolik]

very interesting ilarri, I can't see them ever being able to police it anyhow. We're pretty safe I reckon

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

It wouldnt make a differenece anyway.
They killed UltraHLE with this same patent, and how many N64 emulators exist now? Plenty.

Sony killed Bleem! and shutdown CVGS, yet how many PSX emulators exist now? Plenty.

They cracked down on MP3's not to long ago, yet how many millions of people are still downloading illegal MP3s?

The only difference it would make, is that the US law would "offically" say that emulation of nintendos handhelds is illegal. I am sure _all_ of use have known for years that its basically illegal. No difference here.

 

[narmak]

Can someone explain to me how this would ban gba emulators? I mean, nobody stole code from nintendo to make the emulators, and being as the emulators help keep the gba dev scene alive, i'm not sure it would really be helping nintendo in any way.

 

[c0ncept]

as I understand the patent laws you CANNOT patent a "concept" such as GBA emulation per se.

What patents cover are specific instances of coding or methodology of emulation. This patent is only likely to affect emulators that use the same method of emultion that nintend has patented. Because there are several ways to emulate a system one patent cannot cover them all. In this case nintendo have patented one specific way to emulate the GBA, ALL other methods of emulation are not covered by this patent. And anyway, as Illari said the patent only applies to Noth America anyways. The coding bod's in Europe and Asia should be fine!

 

[ColinR]

Isn't it just emulators running on handheld devices? After all if you can run a game at full speed with full sound on a PocketPC, why buy a GBA (if you already have a PPC)?

The thing is, Nintendo have realised there is a wave of powerful handheld devices on the way, and they need to protect themselves from it. Zodiac, Gametrac, N-Gage and the Gamepark may not be able to run a GBA emulator at full speed, but I'll bet my last penny that the Zodiac 2, Gametrac 2 or the Gamepark 2 will.

I don't think the patent covers Gameboy Advance emulators on PC (although I may be wrong).

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

The patent covers a specific type of emulatoin, doesnt matter the platform.

A good thing though, is, the new GBA emu for Gp32 is a totally different form of emulation than any other GBA emulator, so that probably wouldnt fall under the patent anyway. (aside from the fact that its not in the US)

And I think GP32 and Zodiac and probably even Gametrac will be fully capable of full speed GBA emulation.

 

[Alpha2]

I wouldnt worry about the legality of having an emmulator right now. They should be the least of their worries especially when I can download a GBA game THE DAY it comes out! They cant see what you have in your machine (unless of course that whole thing about microsoft is true... <_< ) and even if they could it very unlikly that all our emmulators could be fit under their patent... I'd almost want to see them try to enforce this just to see them waste the precious bits of money they still have from sales of pokemon cards and suddenly go out of buisness.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

The day it comes out Alpha2 ? Your behind the times, I could get them day(s) before they come out.

Although I only do that to games I plan on buying and have no patience to wait those couple days.

 

[ilarri]

Akuma no Houkon,im with you,im agree with all your words.
and the patent only covers the emulation in "low technology portable ssytems" but who knows whats a low technology? gp32 its worst than gba?? can play divx,mp3,and its powerfull.

No,there are many ways to evade this stupid Us law,like make the emu and put in european website,or chinese website,any country except us,canada and mexico.
and yes,the way to emulate something,starting from 0 to emulate a ssytem, with free and public info about the components, chip to chip,orders to orders, its free and legal.

thats a stupid nintendo idea to stop the emulation.
for nintendo emulation = piracy and this isnt true.

why they didnt stop the piracuy in Far east?? BECAUSE THEY DONT WANT.

FREE emulation!! gp32 its only a way to translate sytems!!

edit: i hope to see a full speed gba emualtor running in the gp32,please if somebody its working in it,CONTINUE WITH THE WORK,the gp32 community will make a statue for you, we believe in your work!

 

[Daz_Genetic]

I'm sure if someone had the money to fight Nintendo, that they could get this patent ripped up. The GBA was being emulated before it was even released. And this patent was filed after GBA emulation was already widespread.

Nintendo know that this patent is worthless in court, but their bank balance isn't. They can use it as an excuse to bring someone to court in order to drain their finances.

This is the simple fact, Nintendo have only used this patent to attempt to bring down, COMMERCIAL exploitation of their intellectual property. They have not went after any of the multiple emulators available for other systems. Crimson fire advertised their emultor as a method to play 1000s of GBA games... etc.. They forgot to cover their asses and they got what they deserved as far as I'm concerned. Everyone knows what emulators can be used for, but the moment you start advertising that fact, you are going to get into legal problems.

 

[skeezix]

Note that they cannot patent "emulation".

They also cannot successfully apply patent to most of the technology mentioned.. most of us emu guys have prior art to it.

Their patent is mostly interesting with regard to changing the emu based on the rom type.. detecting its a GB rom and running a GB emulator code subset, and such. Thats a right pain in the ass, so that could be interesting.

Most of it is a nonissue, especially on the GP32..

jeff

 

[finty]

wasnt that patent to try and stop ultraHLE?

 

[Hooka]

Ok, give me one good reason why a US patent has anything to do with Canada unless Canada has an equivalent patent? according to that segment of NAFTA on the crimson fire boards, they can't do anything with there patent outside the US! I'm not a genius, just read everything on that board including the exerpt from the NAFTA agreement and you'll understand. Copyright and trademark, that's cross border in North America, patents aren't! They have to have applied for on in that country and THAT country has to pass it. Plus, canada checks euro patents before US patents for prior work of art. Why does nobody even think about this?

 

[bringoutthegimp]

all these threads with the same subject are worthless and annoying