Nintendo‘s lawsuit against Pocketpair is still ongoing, despite initial predictions that the former would steamroll the Palworld developer. In fact, things aren’t going according to the Japanese giant’s plans, resulting in a string of hail-mary moves to try to bring down the Pokemon with guns MMO.
Among these last-ditched efforts was a patent for a system to capture monsters. Unfortunately for Nintendo, the Japan Patent Office has rejected the patent, saying that it lacked an inventive step, and that there are plenty of examples of a similar system being used in other games like Ark, Monster Hunter 4, and Craftopia.
Nintendo’s Anti-Palworld Patent Has Been Rejected
A report by GamesFray (via Insider Gaming), has revealed that Nintendo’s patent application 2024-031879 has been rejected by the JPO. In patent terms, it is the sibling of a larger anti-Palworld patent, and is a parent of another patent. As you can see, Nintendo’s lawyers were meticulous in filing these patents, but it seems that wasn’t enough.
Nintendo’s attempt to patent ‘monster capturing’ was always going to be a longshot, considering how many games already use a similar feature before December 2021. It’s not a new or inventive feature, and that’s the primary reason for the rejection. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the lawsuit is going anywhere; we know how determined Nintendo’s legal team is.
The lawsuit has been dragging on for a while, with Nintendo doing everything in its power to derail Pocketpair. In a previous hearing, it also went as far as to say that mods cannot be considered prior art, and cannot stand on their own like the games they are built on. The implications of this statement are much wider, as they would see the creative innovation and hard work of the modding community would become fair game for others to patent.
Palworld has already gotten rid of its Pal Spheres mechanic, and also implemented a change to Pal guiding thanks to the lawsuit. While these are already massive wins for Nintendo, it seems that the legal team is not content, and wants even more features stripped out of the game.
- Released
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January 19, 2024
- ESRB
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T For Teen Due To Violence
- Developer(s)
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Pocket Pair, Inc.
- Publisher(s)
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Pocket Pair, Inc.
- Engine
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Unreal Engine 5
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
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Xbox Series X|S, pc
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