Everyone in the emulation scene can breathe a sigh of relief.
There is no judgement in a settlement, and settlements are not case-law. The court has little to do with the settlement as it is simply a binding agreement between the parties to resolve the dispute outside of the court. The judge must also agree and sign off but the settlement is only binding to the parties to the suit and does not create any precedent.
If Nintendo wishes to go after anyone else, it will require an entirely new suit. A quick google on the differences between judgements, verdicts, and settlements will explain a lot better.
Yes, if you were to argue it later in court, you would argue that technically it was a judgment to enter the stipulation and dismiss. And the court may strike the “Judgment” wording in the proposed order. But Nintendo presumably wrote it as a “Judgment” knowing the value that such a designation has.
Further, most stipulated settlements don’t include substantive findings of fact, and again, Nintendo drafted that section explicitly to blur the line between a court’s finding of facts and mere approved stipulated findings of fact. With this order on the books, it will be up to the next case’s defendant to later argue that it wasn’t equivalent to any other trial findings of fact and order.
Yes, it doesn’t technically create precedent as a trial-tested findings of fact by the Court, but a competent litigation attorney would argue that it is probative of the factual issue and fudge the wording in a brief well enough to argue effectively the same.
