Let's Make Nintendo Aware of Johnny Lee!

[alpha_dk]

@dryden:

This is not now in the public domain. In order to get this idea in the public domain, he would need to do an expensive patent search, patent it, and then put the patent into the public domain (or, really, offer a non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevokable blanket patent to everyone on the planet). As it stands, if it is not yet patented, someone could walk into the patent office tomorrow, EVEN THOUGH he has already released this video, and patent this idea instead of him and thereby receive a patent for it. At this point, they would be able to sue anyone but him for patent violation, unless they have a documented earlier use of this technique to claim prior art; you cannot use someone else's prior art as your prior art, except to try and convince a judge that its an obvious extension of previous work to an expert in the field, which would be a hard thing to prove.

So in conclusion, IANAL:TINLA, but I wouldn't go around implementing this tech just yet and think you're safe... it in no way is in the public domain.