Just an FYI, you can buy a “patent print” of the Virtual Boy from Massdrop. It’s a nice 18×24″ poster size printed on card stock. I have a few others (unfortunately not of the VB) and they look pretty nice.

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/inked-and-screened-video-game-patent-prints

$14 for the print, $4 for shipping to USA (not sure on international prices, from what I hear int’l shipping is usually pretty brutal)

For those that don’t know, this is a “group buy” website. They offer a deal for a set amount of days (5 days left on this deal), then at the end they place an order as a group. Usually pretty slow shipping by the time all that happens, but sometimes you save money.

The company that is actually making the print is https://inkedandscreened.com/ They don’t have the Virtual Boy listed on their website at the moment, but hopefully they will in the near future.

Note: I have no affiliation with either company other than being a customer.

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Thanks for the heads-up! That poster is pretty badass, I think I’m going to order one :).

Is that picture from their website? I assume it doesn’t come nicely framed like that…

I may be misreading it, but does it say ‘Patented 1999’ on there?

[KR155E]

This looks very nice, cool idea! You can do a poster like this on your own for pennies, though. Just throw together some images from the various patents and pay your local print shop a visit – or even print it yourself at home.

speedyink schrieb:
I may be misreading it, but does it say ‘Patented 1999’ on there?

Yup, sounds really odd but it’s true. The main patent for the Virtual Boy was filed on May 1st, 1996 and was issued on February 2nd, 1999.

EDIT: this variant on blue graph paper is my favorite 🙂

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by KR155E.

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Bizarre, for some reason I thought the patents would be filed well before release. Then again I don’t really pay attention to the patent system =P

I do like that blue graph paper variant!

I, too, never would have guessed that the patent would have taken so long to be issued.

Cool and informative thread.

From what I remember about the patent and trademark process, it takes quite a while to get the patent or trademark to be certified. This is based on testing the idea against public domain. It doesn’t surprise me about the time frame though. Nintendo would also have needed proof of the purpose of the product, which could’ve been a package from the market. I forgot the time period length, but my experience from filing for a trademark a few years ago tells me that it makes complete, legitimate sense.

Anyone else notice 1999 is also the launch year of the Wonderswan? (March 4 1999)