You might want to grab a big bucket of popcorn for this one, as the big fight is about to begin. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have formally gone after Palworld maker Pocketpair.
Interestingly, this is specifically about alleged patent infringement. It's not exactly surprising though, considering Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced back in January they were currently investigating Palworld. Obviously they felt there was enough to go through with a legal battle.
From the press release:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (HQ: Kyoto, Minami-ku, Japan; Representative Director and President: Shuntaro Furukawa, “Nintendo” hereafter), together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc. (HQ: 2-10-2 Higashigotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, “Defendant” hereafter) on September 18, 2024.
This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.
Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.
Business lawyer Richard Hoeg posting on X / Twitter brings up a good point here:
Probably going to need more specifics before I can comment more completely, but Palworld is such a different type of game from Pokémon, it’s hard to imagine what patents (*not* copyrights) might have been even plausibly infringed. Initial gut reaction is Nintendo may be reaching.
What actual patents could Palworld have infringed on? Palworld may have similarities, but as a whole it is a vastly different game to anything Pokémon that has been released so far. Plus, there's been a great many other creature collecting games released before Palworld, and lots of games that also have similar game mechanics to other parts of Palworld so this lawsuit could have a knock-on effect elsewhere if Nintendo win.
Palworld is rated Steam Deck Playable by Valve and Gold on ProtonDB.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: Cyba.CowboyQuoting: doragasuWeird they go for patent infringement and not for copyright infringement
They appear to be using Poké Ball-like items in the trailer for Palworld on Steam... Maybe it's something to do with this?
Quoting: PenglingOn the other hand, it's being speculated that Nintendo is going after Palworld on patent grounds due to holding patents on the concept of catching monsters in a ball
Quoting: aaronb120I'm guessing one of the issues is about Patent Publication No. 20240278129(the mechanic of throwing the Poke-ball in third person, in Legends Arceus)
Ah-ha! Exactly as I thought...
Quoting: Penglingsomething that was inspired by real-world gachapon toys that existed before the Pokemon games did.
Well this is interesting... I didn't know this!
Let me also introduce you to Robotrek:
QuoteRobotrek (1994) was another early title similar to Pokémon. It was a predecessor to the core gameplay of Pokémon in that the protagonist does not himself fight, but instead sends out robots, which are kept in capsules outside of battle.[6] There was a resemblance in functionality between these capsules and the Poké Balls used in Pokémon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster-taming_game#History
So the patent is for monsters being caught in balls? How is that worthy of being a patent?
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