Nintendo granted patent for emulating handheld consoles and software

Any geek worth his / her salt knows that techdom's territory-spanning intellectual property spats are far from over, so we don't begrudge heavyweights like Nintendo for endeavoring to bulk up their litigious arsenal. Filed back in October of 2003 and just recently granted by the USPTO, is patent number 8,157,654 that gives the Big N ownership of a method to emulate video game consoles bearing built-in displays (think: handhelds) and accompanying software on external computing devices. What does that mean in plain 'ol English, dear gaming fanatic? Well, it could presage a device agnostic service that would break the company's vast backlog of handheld titles out of its walled garden and into the vast consumer wild. Or it could just be another legal armament poised for deployment should the sue-happy titans of the electronics industry come a-calling. Either way, the house that Mario built's got another IP bullet locked and loaded.

Nintendo granted patent for emulating handheld consoles and software originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.