Following , and claiming it had no idea which patents it’s accused of infringing, analysts believe they’ve worked out which patent Nintendo plans to use to win its case. Kiyoshi Kurihara, a Japanese patent attorney and consultant on intellectual property spoke to on the lawsuit (translated by ), and pointed to a “killer patent” that revolves around the mechanic of catching Pokémon itself. “It seems like it would be hard to avoid if you want to make a Pokémon-like game, and it’s easy to infringe if you’re not careful,” Kurihara is quoted as saying.
In general gameplay terms, Palworld’s survival and crafting mechanics are more like those of Ark than Pokémon. After Palworld’s huge launch earlier this year, comparisons were made between Palworld’s Pals and Pokémon, with some accusing Pocketpair of "ripping off" Pokémon designs. But rather than file a copyright infringement lawsuit, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have gone down the patent route.
Kurihara identified four divisional patent applications that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company jointly registered after Palworld’s launch in January. A divisional patent contains isolated content from an already registered parent patent. The patent Kurihara believes is the focus here, Patent No.
7545191, describes, per : Patent No. 7545191, alongside three related others, were only approved in August, which might help explain why it’s taken this long for Nintendo to announce its lawsuit. The parent patent of the four divisional patents was registered in December 2021, and thus, Automaton points out, are legally effective against Palworld, which launched January 2024.
Nintendo has yet to officially reveal the patents it alleges Pocketpair has infringed. It is worth noting that Palworld does include a mechanic that involves throwing a ball-like object (called a Pal Sphere) at monsters out in a field to capture them, and this may prove the key to the lawsuit. Kurihara suggested Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed the four division patents for specific use in litigation against Palworld developer Pocketpair.
As for Pocketpair, it’s said it will begrudgingly investigate the patent infringement claims while continuing to update Palworld despite the lawsuit, and apologized to players left concerned about the future of the game. Here’s Pocketpair’s statement in full: Players are now left wondering whether Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s lawsuit will force Pocketpair to remove Palworld from sale or even shut the game down. Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC earlier this year, breaking sales and concurrent player number records in the process.
Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe has said Palworld's launch was so big that the developer . Still, Pocketpair acted swiftly to capitalize on Palworld’s breakout success, to form a new business called Palworld Entertainment that’s tasked with expanding the IP. Speaking of Sony, Palworld is heavily rumored to be set for a PlayStation launch announcement at this month’s Tokyo Game Show.
, so this would come as little surprise. TGS runs from September 26 to 29. , it remains one of the most-played games on Steam (Microsoft does not make Windows PC and Xbox player numbers public), sitting comfortably in the top 100 on Valve's platform.
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