EDIT: Well it turns out New Scientist was wrong, and Tetris 64 was not developed by Nintendo. The story, and the whole point of this topic, is therefore groundless and I apologize for failing to research this before I stated what I did.

New Scientist (UK), 18 August 2007

Canadian game developer "Frozen North Productions" has created a Teris variant called BioBlox. Players place their hand on a sensor that measures their pulse rate. The speed of the game increases if their pulse rate goes up, and vice versa. This provides an incentive for players to remain calm.

Quote:

"...In 1999, Nintendo released Tetris 64, which also used pulse rate to control the speed of play, but it only ran on Nintendo's console. BioBlox runs on Windows-based PCs and will be available online soon."

Thats great, really. I think that a game that teaches you how to reduce your blood pressure is a good thing. Then again, that chili dog in the fridge looks good too

If every company had all their ideas patented... Well... There would be much less games in the world

Yeah could you imagine.. Company A came up with the steering wheel to be used for games and patents it so no other company or game can use such a device (at least racers could still be made). Company B patents the light gun for games so we never get to experience Duck Hunt on the NES. Company C patents game cartridges so consoles as we know them never come into existance.  You get the picture, so why would you want Nintendo to patent something like that which could result in some new gaming experience or revolution in gaming never happening or put off by years or decades?

 Well someone is going to patent and own the technology, thats how the system works.  I would rather it be a well known company who has proven innovative and capable of putting ideas to use.  Especially if that company truly came up with the idea in the first place.

Granted I would prefer ideas to be used freely but thats not how it works usually. 

I think that this idea of measuring exitement could translate easily into measuring fear, since fear is a variant of exitement.

If the developers made something like doom 3 and put in more monsters when you got scared, it might change the whole dynamic of the games.

Patents don't mean no one else can use it. But the other companies generally have to pay the patent owner to use the technology. Honestly, I would say 90% of these lawsuits are throw away garbage that get settled outside of court because it'll cost less than taking it to court.

Ok for starters it was SETA who came up with the bio sensor for the N64 game, Amtex who created the game, and SETA who then published it. So why should Nintendo be the ones to patent it when they had nothing to do with the game or the development of the sensor?

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_64

ps. Nintendo didn't invent everything.

 This statement is just as valid as when I say your last past was lame.  It also fails to address specifics just as utterly and completely as your post does.

Patents are a part of the business world, whether we like them or not.  The OP failed to do the research but it doesn't change the fact that somebody is going to end up paying somebody royalties and it probably won't impact the development of future games much if at all.