AU Customs Seizes Imported R4 Cartridges

In what could be chalked up as another win for Nintendo Down Under, Australian Customs and Border Protection Service officials have seized an incoming shipment of R4 cartridges, which can be used with Nintendo’s DS to play pirated games.

The seizure is detailed in an IT Wire story from the future, which notes that a question of the legality over selling the R4 carts in Australia now exists following Nintendo’s victory last month over an Australian website that sold the devices.

While it was originally reported that Nintendo’s beef with RSJ IT Solutions (which operates the site GadgetGear) was settled in court by a judge, later updates indicate that the $520,000 AU fine levied was not actually handed down by a judge, but that the case was settled out of court. Adding to the confusion, the case was settled “in such a manner that the Judge was still permitted to pass down an order.”

Getting back to this recent case, customs said that it seized the goods under “the Notice of Objection Scheme in the Trade Marks Act 1995,” adding that it “regularly” attempts to find counterfeit Nintendo products entering the country.

A Nintendo spokesperson told IT Wire that customs officials will send it photos of suspected counterfeit goods and  Nintendo responds with its take on whether the products are counterfeit or not. Once goods are taken, the importer of the products can object to the seizure, but this has apparently “never occurred.”

So, for this one particular case, what exactly happened? A customs official attempted to sum it up:

On 29 January 2010, Customs and Border Protection seized approximately 150 items suspected of infringing Nintendo’s trademarks. In accordance with this Scheme, the importer agreed to forfeit these items to Customs and Border Protection. Customs and Border Protection will dispose of these forfeited items.

The decision to take legal action is made by the registered objector. The court will determine any penalties that would be imposed.

Relatedly, in a bid to show that R4 cartridges have uses other than to play pirated content, the website R4DS put together a list of the top ten homebrew applications for the DS.

Site operator Adam Ulivi stated, “These are games and applications that talented hobbyists make and distribute for free on the Internet. Most people are unaware that they can actually get free, legal games, because the pirating capabilities of the R4 tend to overshadow its positive capabilities.”