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.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day 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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      24 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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        8 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.

        • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          The student applies for a graduate program to get a degree, not get rich

          And what’s the big selling point behind why you would want to get a degree?

          because it’s an outlier.

          Pre-pandemic public funding wasn’t, which is why I linked a source that provided both so you could see how much of an outlier it was/wasn’t.

          If you go to the patent office and look at recent patents, I doubt a significant number are the result of government funding.

          They all will be to some extent. The hard part is quantifying the extent for each individual patent. I can guarantee that you’re company received/has received some sort of public funding and so yes the government does have involvement directly funding them, even if it isn’t as explicit as with public health funding. Indirect funding is the much harder one to suss out but is likely significantly more.

          Did Nintendo get government funding for its patents?

          Directly? Probably not, but the whole point of bringing up universities was to show one of the indirect paths. However I don’t speak Japanese in order to actually research but would be very curious to know what sort of subsidies/public assistance it receives, if there exists a thing similar to MEDIA/Creative Europe, etc.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            3 hours ago

            And what’s the big selling point behind why you would want to get a degree?

            To work on interesting problems, that’s why most people get advanced degrees, no? I highly doubt most people who get a Ph.D are in it for the money…

            Indirect funding is the much harder one to suss out

            It’s also rarely directly related to R&D. For example, the company I work for produces chemical products, and innovations in that formulation is critical to our competitive advantage, but not particularly interesting from a national perspective. Our innovations merely help our products stand out from competitors, but competitor products are pretty similar.

            If we get subsidies (haven’t checked), it would be for producing these chemicals with less pollution, using locally produced ingredients, or to improve safety of transporting them.

            If you try hard enough, yeah, you could probably find some form of government funding. But that doesn’t mean the patents were produced as a direct result of public funding.