Back in September Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit in Japan against Palworld developer Pocketpair, and now we actually know why.
It's a messy situation and obviously given that it's Nintendo, a lot of media have wanted to know more specifics. So Pocketpair have put up a news post to do exactly that. Now remember this is about patents, not copyright, so it's not about any creatures included in Palworld.
Keep in mind, as Pocketpair make clear, that Palworld was released on January 19, 2024 here below are the patents that Pocketpair say Nintendo are using against them:
Patent No. 7545191
[Patent application date: July 30, 2024]
[Patent registration date: August 27, 2024]
Patent No. 7493117
[Patent application date: February 26, 2024]
[Patent registration date: May 22, 2024]
Patent No. 7528390
[Patent application date: March 5, 2024]
[Patent registration date: July 26, 2024]
Those individual patents were all applied for after Palworld was released. Looking through them it seems the focus of the patents covers game mechanics like catching creatures and riding creatures.
You might look at the dates Pocketpair gave there (which are correct) and think — well, they were filed after, so how can Nintendo sue using those? The answer is complicated. What Pocketpair don't say, is that these patents are from a parent patent which was registered in 2021 and approved in 2023, meaning it very much does end up applying here to Palworld.
What are Nintendo after then? An injunction against Palworld, a payment of 5 million yen plus late payment damages to The Pokémon Company and a payment of 5 million yen plus late payment damages to Nintendo Co., Ltd.
So if Nintendo / The Pokémon Company win, and it's entirely possible based on the patent situation that they might, we will likely see Palworld no longer for sale.
See more in the Pocketpair news post.
The situation goes well beyond Palworld though. These patents for such specific game mechanics could stifle creativity in other games, and allow Nintendo to go after other game developers if they choose to do so. There's a growing amount of monster catching games, and this could end up causing future developers to reconsider making one. What a mess.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
In other words, I'd be surprised if Pocketpair can't find prior art.
Last edited by Stella on 8 November 2024 at 11:45 am UTC
I hope the patents get invalidated for being unoriginal and obvious and Nintendo goes back to making their own games without sucking air from the entire industry.
Vortex_Acherontic Nov 8
Honestly those patents are so vague, that any lawyer accepted them in the first place is borderline criminal.
So I believe the real reason Nintendo went after Palworld is because, as many have pointed out, some of the Palworld creature designs are blatant ripoffs of well-known Pokémon creature designs.
Last edited by Talon1024 on 8 November 2024 at 3:52 pm UTC
patents covers game mechanics like catching creatures and riding creaturesFunny, in Ultima Online it was already possible to do this a few decades ago
So Pong creator can pursue every video game companies...
It's much more fun if Nintendo is right.
Every video game company can come after the Pong creator
Palworld was already doing these things, before Nintendo patented them, but according to Nintendo Palworld copied their technology.
In other words according to the things I know about patents this is claiming the defendant has a time machine.
In Palworld this was possible before the patent got filled...patents covers game mechanics like catching creatures and riding creaturesFunny, in Ultima Online it was already possible to do this a few decades ago
i mean:
one thing is: no one know how to make an machine fly, you create an method, you get compensated for it...
another thing is: we patent the act of pressing an button and something happening on screen.
the fact that the player pressed an button has no impact on the result on screen,the programmers can code the button to do anything or even use an joystick axis or mouse movment to do the same action, there is no physical correlaction between the 2 things like an "cause and effect" due to physics, its just how the programer chose to "wire" the machine.
This is absolutely ridiculous. How is it even allowed to patent mechanics like 'catching and riding creatures' in the first place? They could sue a ton of games on that basis, like Ark: Survival, Monster Hunter Wings of Ruin, paleo Pines and many others. All those allow you to do thatridding... red dead redemption let you ride horses...
Fuck any lawyer involved in filing this sort of patent.there is any consequence for the patent being rejected? because im pretty sure nintendo should be sued for even trying to patent ridiculous things like that.
I hope the patents get invalidated for being unoriginal and obvious and Nintendo goes back to making their own games without sucking air from the entire industry.
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