Pocketpair, developers of Palworld, have put up a statement on the new lawsuit that has been filed against them from Nintendo and The Pokemon Company.
Here's the statement in full:
Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement.
We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.
At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details.
Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.
It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.
We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused.
As always, thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair.
When it comes to what patent infringement Nintendo / Pokemon could be going after Pocketpair for, well, Nintendo actually have quite a number of patents that are for some very specific game mechanics. Which could be really problematic not just for Pocketpair, but all game developers looking to do anything similar.
Take for example this patent (approved in Japan, pending in the USA), that covers the feature of capturing creatures by throwing an object and sending out a character (like a Pokemon) to engage in combat.
Remember, this is not about copyright infringement, so they're not specifically going after any of the creature designs, but it's about the patents.
This is going to be a legal fight to remember. One perhaps for the history books.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Caldathras Sep 21
Quoting: PenglingI'm surprised this was approved, considering that there's prior-art - the 1994 SNES RPG Robotrek featured robots who were kept in capsules and sent out into battle, for example.
Quoting: whizseNot a lawyer, but as far as I know, the only prior art searches done by the patent office before approval is by looking at current/pending/prior patents.From a layman's point of view, as I understand it here in North America, whoever gets to the patent office first gets the patent. If the idea was developed earlier by someone else, then they have to challenge it in court and demonstrate proof of their prior claim. Often, the prior claimant cannot afford the legal challenge.
Obviously, this makes the situation ripe for abuse by patent trolls ...
Last edited by Caldathras on 21 September 2024 at 4:21 pm UTC
*Not coincidentally, this was the earliest name for Pokemon, and was presumably changed so they didn't get sued by a bigger fish. There's some irony there, I'm sure.
Quoting: PenglingThere's some irony there, I'm sure.Like Disney, re-using public domain stories for (almost) everything while lobbying for longer copyright protection (for their own stuff).
Quoting: KlaasLike Disney, re-using public domain stories for (almost) everything while lobbying for longer copyright protection (for their own stuff).Yeah, not too different!
More irony, for anyone else who remembers this one, when they brought Pokemon outside of Japan, they stuck with the contracted name instead of the full title of Pocket Monsters, because they didn't want legal issues from the long-established Monster in My Pocket toy-line/media-franchise. They've become exactly what they originally sought to avoid.
Last edited by Pengling on 22 September 2024 at 8:33 pm UTC
ElectricPrism Sep 23
I know this is a bit premature but this Japanese-executive mindset is daft. I wouldn't be that surprised if this failure to read the room leads to the total annihilation of Nintendo as a company in the next 10 years.
After Miyamoto goes they might as well kiss their ass goodbye.
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