Earlier this week, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, of which it’s a part owner, announced they were suing the maker of Palworld , a survival crafting MMO that blew up earlier this year on Steam and Xbox. The companies accused Pocketpair, the studio behind the overnight “Pokémon with guns” sensation, of patent infringement. While neither party has disclosed exactly what elements Palworld is accused of copying, experts have started weighing in on the Pokémon mechanics that could be at the heart of the dispute.
“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 announced on September 18. Pocketpair responded the next day. “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,” it wrote.
“It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit.” It could be weeks before the exact allegations of patent infringement are outlined by Nintendo in subsequent filings, but in the meantime, new reporting and analysis has started to shed some light on what the company’s main line of legal attack might be, and why it’s decided to go after Pocketpair in the first place. While the early online controversy around Palworld’s similarity to Pokémon ha.