This definitely gets into political stuff and I know better than to go there but it's always amazed me how people who should be retired are not only public servants but they're still deciding laws for an entire country.

A hauntingly familiar issue:
This happened before most of us held a controller or used a computer but Mortal Kombat had to deal with their highly "realistic and violent" game in the mid 90s which lead to the creation of the ESRB--you know those silly labels: E for everyone, etc. The funny thing was that the arguments congress made involved a plastic gun which was never used in the game.

Now the MK issue wasn't a patent battle in court but my point is policymakers don't understand how the technology works at all. Having a legal system which promotes looking for and exploiting loopholes is what results in problems such as the one in this article. I'm sure Japan's courtrooms are frequented by Nintendo's lawyers but at least in the U.S. most lawyers look for loopholes. This issue evolving into a legal battle is simply the byproduct of decisions made by uniformed policymakers.