With the implementation of Patch v0.5.5 this week, we must make yet another compromise. From this patch onward, gliding will be performed using a glider rather than with Pals. Pals in the player’s team will still provide passive buffs to gliding, but players will now need to have a glider in their inventory in order to glide.

How lame. Japan needs to fix its patent laws, it’s ridiculous Nintendo owns the simple concept of using an animal to fly.

  • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    The main alternative is offering them a subsidy on a silver platter, but then you’re making everyone pay for that R&D

    R&D for many companies is taking the research done by underpaid graduate and PhD students and using that to create some sort of product or buying out the startups those students created and building from that.

    We already live in a system where the majority of costs are publicly subsidized (and that’s not mentioning the myriad of direct subsidies these companies receive, for an especially egregious example look at the amount Pfizer got paid to develop the Covid vaccine) and then the result is patented and privatized.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      20 hours ago

      underpaid graduate and PhD students

      They usually get grants, and frequently the student will get hired to follow up on that research. A lot of the research ends up unusable to the company as well, at least on its own.

      majority of costs are publicly subsidized

      I think that’s a bit extreme, but I’ll give you that a lot of R&D is subsidized. The COVID example, however, is an outlier, since the funding was to accelerate ending the pandemic, which was critical for the economy as a whole.

      • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        the student will get hired to follow up on that research.

        You’re right that that’s an aspect I forgot about, however If the patent system worked as you envision it then those students would own the parent which they would then lease to those companies. The actual situation is quite legally messy because it’s usually the universities which own the IP produced, (which is then leased out via partnerships, grants etc ) and when those individuals lease themselves with the promise of producing more valuable IP they have to take cautions to not infringe on their previous work.

        I think that’s a bit extreme,

        Not really, using Covid as an example this paper details the pre and post-epidemic funding sources that went into the discovery, testing and production of the COVID vaccine. Do you have any other examples you’d like to use to demonstrate how it’s “extreme”?

        The COVID example, however, is an outlier

        Yes and no, but it is well publicized and documented which is what I was trying to communicate with that specific one as an example.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          it’s usually the universities which own the IP produced

          Which is totally reasonable. The student applies for a graduate program to get a degree, not get rich off a patent. Theoretically, any patent royalties retained by the university would go toward funding university activities. I don’t know how much this happens in practice though.

          That said, there should be limits here. If a patent makes over a certain amount, the rest should go to the student.

          it is well publicized and documented

          Right, because it’s an outlier.

          If you go to the patent office and look at recent patents, I doubt a significant number are the result of government funding. Most patents are mundane and created as part of private work to prevent competitors from profiting from their work. My company holds a ton of patents, and I highly doubt the government has any involvement in funding them.

          Did Nintendo get government funding for its patents? I doubt it.