[cadamsdotcom]

The sentence as written was “this is a side activity of a few employees”.

It appears to have been misread - and then interpreted as - “this is a side project of a few developers”.

The activity vs. project distinction is about whether it’s a companywide priority or just the job of a few folks.

And using the word employees instead of developers allows it to be an entirely independent activity from developers.

My read of what OP said is that this is the full time job of a very small number of people whose mandate was probably one utterance from the CEO. Executing on that is mostly common sense, thus requiring very little mindshare from anyone senior - thus, a side activity for the company as a whole.

[TeaBrain]

No, I didn't misread it. I originally thought about making it more general, in reference to "employees", but who other than developers are going to write the wording of a software patent as a side project? Certainly not accountants or HR. However, I was a little kind, as the suggestion that it was possibly a side project is completely absurd. I was a little too passive in my response in this respect, as there is zero chance that patent lawyers, either on staff or on retainer, were not explicitly asked to file the patent.

>the full time job of a very small number of people whose mandate was probably one utterance from the CEO

If this were the case it would be a team of patent lawyers as I said. However, the wording of their comment didn't imply this in saying "a side activity of a few employees", as the implication of the phrasing is that employees are doing it on the side, not that there is a side activity of the company that happens to have employees. In any case, Nintendo is notoriously litigious. Their legal team is likely sizable, and nothing they take action on would just be considered a side activity.