Nintendo’s legal department, known as the “strongest legal department,” is responsible for various infringement lawsuits, and players are interested in their daily work. Recently, Nintendo has introduced the operations of various departments on the recruitment page of its official website. Among them, the work of the “Legal Department” and the “Intellectual Property Department” are the most attractive to players. Recently, this page has become a hot topic on X.
The Legal Department ensures that various games comply with the laws of each country
The work of different departments is introduced on the official Nintendo page “Shishi を読み解く” (Deconstructing Our Work). Chatan, an employee of the Legal Department, writes an article on this page. The article mentioned that the work of the Legal Department is to assist smart device applications released globally to ensure compliance with the laws of various countries or regions, coordinate communication between developers and employees of overseas legal departments, and conduct review and adjustments. In addition to being responsible for litigation, they also need to sign contracts with domestic and foreign business partners to ensure that the game complies with the laws of different countries. Of course, laws vary from country to country, and content that is fine in Japan may be prohibited in some countries. Take “Animal Crossing” as an example. Nintendo adjusted the game content to comply with foreign gambling laws and changed the “777” on the slot machine to a character picture, making this “OK game console” look like a cute machine in an amusement park.
According to the website, Nintendo’s legal department needs to consider the characteristics of the product “game”. If you fully comply with the legal requirements of some countries, players may be forced to read a lot of tedious notes before starting the game. This is not what customers expect, and the development team also holds the same view. Therefore, the Legal Department works closely with overseas subsidiaries to find the best solution that can meet legal requirements without affecting player experience. Although various countries have various regulations, if Nintendo blindly caters to all legal requirements, it may inhibit the creativity of developers. Therefore, the Nintendo Legal Department attaches great importance to not only being a “messenger”, but also helping the development team realize their ideas and keep the game interesting while complying with the law.
The intellectual property department discovers company innovations and turns them into patents
In addition to the legal department, the Nintendo page also introduces their intellectual property department. The business scope of the Intellectual Property Department is very broad, covering patent rights, design rights, trademark rights and copyrights, etc., and is divided into multiple groups. The intellectual property department is responsible for protecting game innovation patents, such as patenting game features in “Ring Fit Adventure”, and investigating whether other companies have infringed on patent rights owned by Nintendo.
In the process of patenting an invention, developers sometimes propose ideas to the IP in advance that may be suitable for patenting. Basically, the game features that developers pay special attention to are often closely related to the excellent quality of the game. Therefore it is very important to patent these features. The job of the Intellectual Property Department is to turn the hard work of developers into patent documents. However, sometimes inventions that developers are not aware of may be buried, so personnel from the intellectual property department will personally play games under development to check whether there are any overlooked ideas. This is also one of the important responsibilities of intellectual property.
Take the Nintendo Switch game “Ring Fit Adventure” as an example. It is a new type of game that combines RPG and fitness. Therefore, the game contains many innovative ideas, and the developers also made many suggestions on patent applications during the development process. In order to better understand the game, colleagues brought sports equipment to the company, played the game in person with their seniors, and discussed whether there were other inventions suitable for patent application in addition to the ideas suggested by the developers. Because they needed to experience the game first-hand, the staff of the Intellectual Property Department spent a lot of energy in the process. In addition to the charm of this game, and discover more creative ideas.
Through such efforts, the intellectual property department staff discovered many patentable ideas for the company. For example, the basic combat system of “Ring Fit Adventure” (players attack enemies by selecting and executing movements until the enemy’s HP returns to zero) is combined with the common RPG mechanism of “players gain experience points and upgrade, and the character’s abilities improve.” Although this mechanism is very common in traditional RPGs, it is combined with the movement selection and execution system to form the unique combat system of “Ring Fit Adventure”. By playing this game, the Intellectual Property Department found that this combination has the potential to become a patent, because the movement system in the game allows both players and game characters to grow. This dual growth mechanism helps maintain and enhance the player’s movement motivation. The gameplay is completely different from traditional RPG. In the end, the intellectual property department staff applied for a patent for this idea and successfully obtained the patent right.
Image source: ITmedia
Source:ITmedia
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