PATENTLY ABSURD: EIGHT OR NINE GAMING PATENTS YOU NEVER EVEN KNEW ABOUT

Games have ripped off games ever since the dawn of gaming.

Indeed, ripping off other games has become as ubiquitous within the games industry as Christ's body was - both physically and spiritually - at the Lord's Supper, as referred to in the Lutheran doctrine of Consubstantiation.

Still... much as we're often taken aback by the wholesale ripping-off that goes on between games companies, not everyone has left themselves open to it.

To further illustrate that of which we speak... here are eight or nine solid gaming patents that you might not know about.

---

NINTENDO: TOUCHSCREEN CONTROLLER

Look at this. It's some sort of all-touchscreen controller thing, that Nintendo filed a patent for last year. Inevitably, many have speculated that it could have something to do with the forthcoming NX: Nintendo's next big console is rumoured to be a type of smartphone/console hybrid.

If a touchscreen sounds like a wretched way to control console games - worry not: apparently, two physical analogue sticks would poke through the possibly hypothetical screen. As for the whimsical egg-head character portrayed in the patent image? That's Nintendo's new mascot: Charlotte Brontë.

Nicely, the back of the controller doubles as a Ped-Egg-style file for removing dead and rough skin from your feet.

SONY: EMOTION CONTROLLER

This bizarre system was patented by Sony during the PS3's lifetime, and would've seen the console reading a player's emotions. 

Though this patent image shows a man laughing hysterically at an on-screen video of someone kicking themselves up the bottom - refreshing to know that Sony was aiming for the highest common denominator - the device would've also been capable of detecting boredom, excitement and ennui.

"Ha Ha Ha".

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG: CORKSCREW LOOP

Those famous Sonic loops, where he runs upside down? There's a reason why no other platform game ripped them off: Sega patented them. Surprised? You really shouldn't be: this is a list of about eight or nine gaming patents, so why else would we have mentioned it?

What a shame they didn't also patent anthropomorphic animal mascots... we would've been spared Bubsy the Bobcat and his tawdry ilk.

Rumour has it that inspiration for the corkscrew loops came from lead programmer Yuji Naka, after he caught his necktie in a tumble dryer mechanism, while trying to punish a cruel shrew.

KATAMARI DAMACY: STICKY BALLS

Rolling a sticky ball that gathers up everything in its path, only for it to become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger? There's a reason why you'll only see that in the Katamari Damacy series: Namco patented the shit out of it.

NAMCO: LOADING SCREEN MINI-GAMES

Namco also patented this: putting mini games on loading screens. You might recall the PlayStation version of Ridge Racer, with its arcade-perfect recreation of the arcade game Galaxians (not to mention its arcade-perfect recreation of the arcade game Ridge Racer). You might also recall that no other game copied the idea. Now you know why, yeah?

Frankly, given that Ridge Racer only offered one track, some of us were thankful for the extra value offered by its loading screen. 

​What's that you say? You could also play through the track backwards? Try re-eating a meal backwards, and ask yourself whether that's value for money too, you corporate-cheerleading sheep. 

MASS EFFECT: DIALOGUE WHEEL

Branching dialogue in RPGs has been around for years, but Bioware is the only company to have patented a circular dialogue wheel. Revolutionary, huh?

​Some of the things on this list aren't very interesting. This is probably the least interesting among them.

ETERNAL DARKENSS: INSANITY METER

Eternal Darkness was Nintendo's answer to Resident Evil, sort of - an out-of-nowhere survival horror, courtesy of Canadian developer Silicon Knights, that did its best to mess with the player's head.

Among its fourth wall-warping tricks, it would turn the sound down on your TV, appear to wipe all of your save games, and send your mother on needless errands ("MOTHER HAS GONE TO FETCH BRICKS"... "MOTHER IS COLLECTING LEAVES"... "MOTHER WASHES TABLE LEGS").

However, its coup de guff was the insanity meter - the more insane your character got, the weirder the game became. Though something of a critical success, Eternal Darkness flopped on the family-friendly Gamecube, which explains - as much as the patent - why other games have steered away from offering mentally ill main characters.

CRAZY TAXI: BIG FLOATING ARROW

Sega sued EA over The Simpson's Hit and Run's wholesale lifting of its Crazy Taxi gameplay, eventually settling the case out of court. Why they do this? Remember the big, floating, green arrow in Crazy Taxi? That's Sega's and Sega's alone.

Consider that next time you decide to affix a big, green, foam arrow to the front of your car, using a length of bamboo. Sega's lawyers would descend on you like jackals.

NINTENDO: D-PAD

In its own way as much an icon of the Nintendo brand as Mario, the cross-bar D-pad is a Nintendo patent, dating back to the Game & Watch brand. This is why you won't see it replicated precisely on any other joypad, and why others have sought to hide their debt to Nintendo's classic, by making their pad more circular, broken up, or crucifix-like.

Small mercy, mind: it's not exactly the cross-bar D-Pad isn't the most finger-friendly of designs. Just look at the callouses on our thumbs.

<HOLDS UP THUMBS TO SCREEN>.

​Oh wait. You can't see them.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
SUPER MARIO: HIS SECRET HISTORY
THE PRE-HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES: 1947 - 1959
NINTENDO: LIFE BEFORE MARIO - A HISTORY

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT YOUR DOG IS DREAMING ABOUT: