| Nintendo of America Inc. Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
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| 20120130908 | VOICE RECOGNITION METHOD AND APPARATUS USING MODEL NUMBER LOOKUP - A voice response system for use in obtaining return qualification information for a product using a non-unique product identifier, including: a dial-in voice system operable to prompt a caller for the non-unique product identifier, wherein the non-unique product identifies the product as a member of a defined product group: a product registration database including a plurality of different, non-unique product identifiers: a return policy storage that defines return policies for each of the non-unique product identifiers: and an arrangement that looks up a specific return policy for the non-unique product identified entered by the caller and provides information to the caller regarding return qualification for the product identified by the non-unique product identifier. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120123845 | Systems and/or methods for fraud detection in award point programs - Certain exemplary embodiments described herein relate to the field of electronic registration (ER) of purchased items and, more particularly, to improved electronic registration techniques that provide validation and/or verification services for an award points program and/or products having associated award points. Certain exemplary embodiments provide electronic award points management techniques that authenticate item purchases, determine eligibility for inclusion in a manufacturer's or a retailer's award program, help identify and detect potential fraudulent transactions involving award points and/or associated products, etc. Certain exemplary embodiments may allow point information to be printed directly on a case where it is continually visible, which may, in turn, help increase enrollment by increasing visibility of the program, reducing the likelihood of insert cards being lost, etc., while at the same time reducing costs for program implementation on the part of manufacturers, retailers, etc. | 05-17-2012 |
| 20120078739 | Electronic registration systems for tracking and/or identifying fraudulent gift cards purchased or linked to fraudulent item returns, and associated methods - The exemplary embodiments described herein relate to the field of electronic registration (ER) of purchased products and, more particularly, to an improved electronic registration system that enables the tracking and/or identifying of fraudulent gift cards that are purchased or linked to fraudulent item returns. In certain exemplary embodiments, transaction information for gift cards is stored in and/or connected to an ER database such that fraudulent activities associated with the gift card and/or items linked to the gift card may be tracked and/or identified—even potentially long after the gift card has been initially provided. | 03-29-2012 |
| 20120078738 | Electronic registration systems for items purchased under a gift registry and/or for items to be distributed post-sale, and associated methods - The exemplary embodiments described herein relate to the field of electronic registration (ER) of purchased products and, more particularly, to an improved electronic registration system that tracking and validating return/warranty eligibility for items purchased from a gift registry and/or to be given to a recipient at a future time, e.g., remote from the actual purchase date. If it is determined that a product is sold as a part of a gift registry, for example, the “start date” of the return/warranty eligibility period may be effectively set as the event date rather than the actual item purchase date and/or event date validation may be selectively performed in place of sale date validation when evaluating return/warranty eligibility for such items. As a result, it is possible to at least partially restore an otherwise diminished return/warranty eligibility period for a purchased, but not immediately gifted, item. | 03-29-2012 |
| 20110264714 | SD CARD MEMORY TOOL - A method and apparatus that creates situations in which insufficient memory is available to store a file created by a computer game device on an SD memory card, or exactly enough memory is available to store a file or sufficient memory is available to store a file. Depending upon the memory condition that is created, software that is being tested behaves in a particular manner. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110190062 | MASSIVELY SINGLE-PLAYING ONLINE GAME - A method and apparatus that allows a player to play a massively single-player online game without directly interacting with other players, while affecting and being affected by other players playing the online game. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110119142 | SYSTEM AND/OR METHOD FOR HANDLING RECALLED PRODUCT PURCHASES AND/OR RETURN/WARRANTY REQUESTS - Certain exemplary embodiments described herein relate to the field of electronic registration (ER) of purchased products and, more particularly, to improved electronic registration techniques purchase-side and/or return-side handling of recalled items. Certain exemplary embodiments on the purchase-side may help to filter-out products that have recalled been before they are purchased. Certain exemplary embodiments on the return-side may help enable recall return overrides, thus facilitating the acceptance of recalled products even though they might not qualify under an original return/warranty policy. Advantageously, more and more recalled products may be filtered out of circulation through the use of purchase-side and/or return-side recall watch list checking techniques of certain exemplary embodiments. Such purchase-side and/or return-side recall watch list checking may be performed together with or separate from electronic registration techniques in different exemplary embodiments. | 05-19-2011 |
| 20110106714 | Method and apparatus for verifying product sale transactions and processing product returns - The present invention relates to a computer-based system that provides a method for real time data storage and retrieval for the purpose of verifying and validating sales transactions and product return/warranty repair eligibility. An electronic product registration system is provided which stores information on purchased products and which enables a retail store or the like to verify compliance with return policies prior to accepting a product for return or replacement, thereby reducing improper or fraudulent product returns under warranty, while also providing related functionality to third parties such as law enforcement agencies and the like. | 05-05-2011 |
| 20110053691 | Simulated Handlebar Twist-Grip Control of a Simulated Vehicle Using a Hand-Held Inertial Sensing Remote Controller - A hand-held Wii remote controller for a video game system is adapted to simulating motion control for a motorcycle, jet skis, or other vehicle steered by handlebars. The player holds the remote horizontally with one hand on each end, parallel to a TV display screen, and can control simulated motorcycle operations using inertial sensing. For example, rotating the handheld remote about its orthogonal X/Y/Z axes as pitch (throttle accelerate/decelerate), yaw (steering left/right), and roll (leaning left/right into a turn) can be used as control inputs. In addition, the player can emulate a more aggressive, real-world lean into turns by rocking side-to-side on an optional balance board. | 03-03-2011 |
| 20110029397 | RF-ID PRODUCT TRACKING SYSTEM WITH PRIVACY ENHANCEMENT - A method for using electronic product identification devices to track product sales and enable sales transactions to be registered in an electronic registration (ER) system without causing privacy or security concerns for the purchasers. RF-ID devices are placed on products being sold and include detailed information about the products. When the products are purchased, the detailed information is loaded into an ER database and all but a limited amount of information is removed from the RF-ID device. The limited information is sufficient to enable the detailed information to be located in the ER database by authorized individuals in connection with a return transaction or the like. | 02-03-2011 |
| 20110016008 | Electronic registration systems for processing variable or multiple return/warranty policies, and associated methods - The exemplary embodiments described herein relate to the field of electronic registration (ER) of purchased products and, more particularly, to an improved electronic registration system that enables variable or multiple return/warranty policies to be processed. In certain exemplary embodiments, at least some transaction information corresponding to an originally purchased product is selectively provided to replacement products provided as a part of a return/warranty request. Thus, it is possible in certain exemplary embodiments to make sure that a return/warranty policy's terms and/or conditions are managed consistently and effectively, even though one or more replacement products may be provided during the lifetime of the policy. In an example variable policy, no refunds are available past a first time period, no exchanges are available past a second time period, and only pro-rata exchanges are available in a third time period, with the periods being fixed regardless of how many times a product has been replaced. | 01-20-2011 |
| 20100325020 | Systems and/or methods for globally tracking items and generating active notifications regarding the same - Certain exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for fraud reduction and/or product recovery. For example, in certain exemplary embodiments, a central repository for item-level data related to stolen, missing, counterfeit, or other items may be provided. The item-level data may be stored as a function of EPC/RFID and/or serial number information in certain exemplary embodiments of this invention. According to certain exemplary embodiments, notification and/or subscription systems may be deployed to search for missing, stolen, or other items throughout the various “touchpoints” in the sales universe by consulting the centralized electronic registration (ER) database. This searching may be performed among and between, and/or on behalf of, interested parties including, for example, retailers, manufacturers, pawnshops, online auction houses, etc. These and/or other parties may be notified, as appropriate, with the notifications being based on subscriptions may by the entities and/or predefined rules. | 12-23-2010 |
| 20100292007 | Systems and methods for control device including a movement detector - An example image processing system and method uses a control device including a movement detector. Gesture inputs corresponding to a gesture made by moving the control device are used for animation. An animation begins based on at least one gesture input received prior to completion of the gesture and the animation is modified based on at least one gesture input received after the beginning of the animation. | 11-18-2010 |
| 20100280783 | CALIBRATION OF THE ACCELEROMETER SENSOR OF A REMOTE CONTROLLER - A method and a video game system are disclosed for maintaining the readings of the accelerometer sensor of the remote controller used in conjunction with the video game system consistent over different controllers and different styles of play. The video game system looks at a predetermined time period, when the largest difference in the acceleration vectors for each frame is within a small limit, indicating that the player is holding the controller relatively idle. Then, the video game system averages the acceleration vectors over this time period, and the inverse of the magnitude of this average is used as a normalization constant. | 11-04-2010 |
| 20100262554 | In-store wireless shopping network using hand-held devices - An example system includes a display, a communication circuit, a memory storing a shopping program, and a processor in communication with the display, the communication circuit and the memory. The processor is configured to execute the shopping program to access a product database including product information, to process inputs supplied to the system to generate a shopping list comprising one or more products from the product database and to provide guidance information on the display relating to product location in a store of the products on the shopping list. | 10-14-2010 |
| 20100235290 | Method and apparatus for enabling purchasers of products to obtain return information and to initiate product returns via an on-line network connection - An electronic registration system facilitates authorized product returns and reduces the incidence of improper returns. A retailer sales associate is prompted to enter individual product identification information such as an individual serial number. This individual product identification information is then stored in a data base along with the date on which the product was sold and an appropriate UPC code, SKU number or manufacturer code. A check digit algorithm may be used to verify the serial number prior to storage. A sales receipt may be imprinted with at least the date of the transaction and the serial number. When a product is returned, the retailer may cross-reference the serial number on the product with that on the receipt to verify the sales receipt. Otherwise, the database may be searched for pertinent sales information. A customer may also access a return authorization engine via the Internet to obtain return approval, an authorization number, return instructions, etc. to reduce retailer hassle. | 09-16-2010 |
| 20100185533 | Voice recognition method and apparatus using model number lookup - A voice response system for use in obtaining return qualification information for a product using a non-unique product identifier, including: a dial-in voice system operable to prompt a caller for the non-unique product identifier, wherein the non-unique product identifies the product as a member of a defined product group: a product registration database including a plurality of different, non-unique product identifiers: a return policy storage that defines return policies for each of the non-unique product identifiers: and an arrangement that looks up a specific return policy for the non-unique product identified entered by the caller and provides information to the caller regarding return qualification for the product identified by the non-unique product identifier. | 07-22-2010 |
| 20100160048 | ENHANCED VIDEO GAME JUKEBOX-TYPE SYSTEM AND METHODOLOGY - A multiple game jukebox system includes a hard drive that is able to execute video game software designed for execution on a conventional home-based system. The hard drive embodies various partitions including multiple partitions, where each partition represents a video game DVD disk. In communicating with such a hard disk drive device using the existing DVD bus, a particular pattern of disk reads or seeks is utilized to cause the hard drive to serve alternative data on subsequent disk reads (other than what exists on the currently selected disk). A media serving device initially defaults to playing a disk that contains a game selection menu program. The menu permits a user to select one of multiple video games for play. | 06-24-2010 |
| 20100083234 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR EFFICIENT STATISTICAL PROFILING OF VIDEO GAME AND SIMULATION SOFTWARE - Efficient statistical profiling in embedded computing devices, such as video games, uses a hybrid random distribution of sampling points for more accurate reconstruction of executing code. Transmission of only function start addresses and corresponding representation of the call graph data reduces the memory overhead and increases communication speed. | 04-01-2010 |
| 20100079463 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR VISUALIZING AND INTERACTIVELY MANIPULATING PROFILE DATA - Profile data collected through sampling is transformed and visually and interactively manipulated and displayed. In one scenario, the profile data is collected through statistical profiling of a program for a video game. The game program profile data is visually and interactively manipulated and displayed to visually present a dynamic behavior of the video game that shows correlation of impacts that the functions of the program have on the video game's performance. This allows the developer to identify inefficient sections of the program for optimization. | 04-01-2010 |
| 20090281935 | Method and apparatus for efficient handling of product return transactions - A method and apparatus for efficient handling of product returns to reduce associated costs. A computer system at a regional product return center scans a returned product for identifying information, accesses a manufacturer return approval computer system through the internet or the like, and then submits the identifying information to the manufacturer for return approval. The manufacturer computer system utilizes the identifying information to access an electronic registration database to determine whether the returned product satisfies applicable return criteria. If so, the product is approved for return to the manufacturer. The regional product return center preferably scans a plurality of returned products in a single session. In response to the product identifying information submitted by the regional product return center, the manufacturer provides a list of approved returns and unapproved returns, along with a return authorization number for the batch of approved returns. The regional product return center then assembles the approved product returns into a box, shipping pallet, or the like, applies a label indicating the return authorization label, and ships the batch to the manufacturer. Shipping costs can be saved by omitting rejected product returns from the shipment. The manufacturer can handle the approved product returns from the regional return center as a batch, thereby reducing costs. | 11-12-2009 |
| 20090181736 | System and method for lock on target tracking with free targeting capability - An example video game includes a virtual game world including a video game character movable within the virtual game world and one or more targets. A first target in the virtual game world can be locked onto so that the first target remains substantially at the center of a field of view of the game character within the virtual game world. A reticle may be moved to target one or more second targets in the virtual game world while the first target remains locked onto. | 07-16-2009 |
| 20090144448 | ENHANCED METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELECTING AND RENDERING PERFORMANCE DATA - Enhanced methodology and apparatus for use in a multi-player video game for generating a array of user selectable options for choosing real or computer generated users to play with and/or compete against. For example, in a simulated multiple driver racing game application, the user of a computing device is presented with an option for selecting any of various “ghost data” packages for downloading over a communication network such as the Internet. For example, the user may be presented with the option of selecting one of an array of ghost data packages to race against such as the top five buddies of the user with highest scores, five buddies with scores similar to a user's own score, and teams/groups of various varieties. A simulated race in a computing device initially occurs with objects and a playing field of relatively low graphic complexity, limited by constraints of the system's processing power and the associated limited number of polygons that can be processed per second, the resolution of the screen, etc. A more powerful rendering of such objects/playing field thereafter takes place in a server after the ghost/performance data is collected and uploaded. | 06-04-2009 |
| 20090048930 | Wireless transmission and reception of information relating to an item advertised on a sign - A transmitter is coupled to a sign advertising a product such as a house or car for sale. The transmitter wirelessly broadcasts visually displayable information relating to the advertised product to one or more portable, hand-held machines. A portable machine receiving the wirelessly broadcasted information may then store and display information about the advertised product such as price, textual description of product features, product photos or pictures, and salesperson's name and contact information with minimal time and effort and maximal convenience. | 02-19-2009 |
| 20090037526 | HANDHELD WIRELESS GAME DEVICE SERVER, HANDHELD WIRELESS DEVICE CLIENT, AND SYSTEM USING SAME - A handheld wireless device is adapted to function as a lightweight, small, and low-cost wireless server for serving handheld wireless clients. The handheld wireless server includes a battery that powers the server, data processing circuitry, read/write memory, and a memory port for receiving an external, detachable, long term, read/write storage device. The read/write storage device stores multiple dynamic server applications for execution by the data processing circuitry and multiple dynamic client applications for download to handheld wireless client devices. Wireless communications circuitry broadcasts initial information and detects communications from handheld wireless client devices including requests to download one of the client applications stored on the long term storage device. The data processing circuitry processes, in parallel, multiple download requests for client applications from multiple handheld client devices, retrieves the client applications from the long term storage device, and provides the client applications wirelessly to the multiple handheld client devices. An example application for traveler in a travel environment is described. | 02-05-2009 |
| 20080287189 | System and method for using accelerometer outputs to control an object rotating on a display - An example system and method controls a rotatable object on a display using a handheld control device comprising an accelerometer. The example system and method involve determining an orientation of the handheld control device using an interpolation of an output for a first axis of the accelerometer and an output for a second axis of the accelerometer. The rotation of the rotatable object is controlled based on the determined orientation. | 11-20-2008 |
