Nintendo, together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc. 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 press release
Since the release of Palworld, which bears a striking resemblance to the Pokémon franchise, everybody’s been kind of expecting a reaction from both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, and here it is. What’s odd is that it’s not a trademark, trade dress, or copyright lawsuit, but a patent one, which is not what you’d expect when looking at how similar the Palworld creatures look to Pokémon, to the point where some people even suggest the 3D models were simply lifted wholesale from the latest Nintendo Switch Pokémon games.
There’s no mention of which patents Pocketpair supposedly infringes upon, and in a statement, the company claims it, too, has no idea which patents are supposedly in play. I have to admit I never even stopped to think game patents were a thing at all, but now that I spent more than 2 seconds pondering this concept, of course they exist.
This lawsuit will be quite interesting to follow, because the games industry is one of the few technology sectors out there where copying each others ideas, concepts, mechanics, and styles is not only normal, it’s entirely expected and encouraged. New ideas spread through the games industry like wildfires, and if some new mechanic is a hit with players, it’ll be integrated into other games within a few months, and games coming out a year later are expected to have the hit new mechanics from last year.
It’s a great example of how beneficial it is to have ideas freely spread, and how awesome it is to see great games take existing mechanics and apply interesting twists, or use them in entirely different genres than where they originated from. Demon’s Souls and the Dark Souls series are a great example of a series of games that not only established a whole new genre other games quickly capitalised on, but also introduced the gaming world to a whole slew of new and unique mechanics that are now being applied in all kinds of new and interesting ways.
Lawsuits like this one definitely pose a threat to this, so I hope that either this fails spectacularly in court, or that the patents in question are so weirdly specific as to be utterly without merit in going after any other game.
This feels sensible by Nintendo. Rather than going after the styling and arguing over what is and isn’t a pikachu they can provide concrete patents.
I have no sympathy for Palworld in this instance. I think they knew full well what they were doing and profited from the association. “pokemon with guns” is in almost every review…
Considering the original Pokemon games came out in 1996, any patents that are relevant to the core idea of Pokemon have expired by now. So, let’s see what patents Nintendo claims were infringed, and then we’ll see if the patents are valid and if they were infringed by Palworld.
BTW I do have sympathy for Palword, Captain Ersatz has been a time-honored tradition when it comes to fictional characters:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CaptainErsatz
As long as the new character is “just different enough”, it’s fair game, always has been,
Nintendo isnt limited to patents only from the original game, it will have built them up from their entire franchise. Plus other games in their quite large back catalogue.
The main issue with Palworld is the Manner of the copy, it’s also affecting their brand. Pokemon is wholesome and family friendly (if you don’t think to deeply about life in a pokeball nor pokemon candy….). Palworld is taking recognisable, kid friendly characters and giving them guns. An ethos Nintendo have steered well clear of for the franchise for understandable reasons. I’m sure if someone made a Disney princess FPS then Disney would be equally annoyed.
Pocketpair also has form in copying Nintendo quite closely if you look at Craftopia. They probably weren’t sued then because legend of zelda characters fishing and farming isn’t That big of a deal to them.
P. S. Captain Ersatz is a different context (to me) , it’s a likeness, but it’s satire, so is covered by that in usage similar to micky mouse in southpark is covered.
Still, Pokémon Gold and Silver were released in 1999, and the last good ideas were in those games. It’s reasonable to assume those patents from 1999 have also expired. As long as Palworld doesn’t copy any ideas found in subsequent games, Pocketpair are in the clear.
What is satire is relative, and in any case, I don’t want to see parent law stretched to absurdity so Nintendo can get Pocketpair, so I have sympathy for Pocketpair.
Ok, now you’re just making me feel old! How was that 20 years ago already??
Adurbe,
I would say this is very short sighted.
Palworld adds a lot of creativity on top of the basic pokemon formula. And it geared towards mature audiences, which Nintendo will almost never do.
This would be akin to saying “Star Wars should be banned as it is heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress” or “Firefox is copying ideas from Chrome. Google should sue them”
The designs are fair game to copyright. And hard to come by mechanics too. But concepts should be open to all.
Assuming they aren’t incompetent, … if they went with patents, they think they are standing strong with that one. Because Japan has some of the best (for creators) copyright protections (for example no Fair Use exception exists).
This is real bad.
https://x.com/Florian4Gamers/status/1836734312881774817
According to a legal expert on Twitter (will not call it X), they are using their patent portfolio unrelated to this game to bully an independent developer.
Basically they wanted to sue for copyright infringement, at least that was the message that leaked. But they failed. As the game is necessarily original enough not be an exact copy of Pokemon.
They also seem to be not using patents on specific Pokemon game mechanics, as the game is also played very differently. (Mining for resources, “pokemon” with machine guns, and yes, you can also cook and eat them).
So, they went onto their war chest, at least according to the rumors, and use generic gaming patents to attack and bully an upstart competitor.
If this is true, what Nintendo is doing is has no redeemable qualities.
Nintendo has a lot of highly paid, very scummy lawyers, that need to justify their existence. They have always over-relied on lawyers to do business, when much more profitable (and obvious) avenues exist. This is just more of Nintendo owners’ bullshit.
CaptainN–,
I have learned that they sued a company for basically having a mobile game:
https://x.com/ynakamura56/status/950982566181404672
And as far as I know they are still extracting license fees from that company. Basically they are killing off any Japanese competition and their courts are okay with having zero new innovative gaming companies coming out of Japan.
This is not good.