Back in September, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced that it is filing a patent lawsuit against Pocketpair and Palworld. At the time, the Japanese indie dev said that it had no idea what patents it is being sued over. That has changed over the weekend, with the company naming three specific patents that is being used against it.
The three specific Japanese patents are numbered 7545191, 7493117, and 7528390. Of these three, the first two relate to the throwing of a ball at characters in a field, and the aiming of said ball specifically. The last one relates to the riding of characters. Notably, while the first and third patent apply just about universally to Pokemon games, Legends: Arceus is so far the only one that involves all three.
Worth noting though are the dates of these patent applications and registration. Pocketpair writes that all of them have been applied for after the release of Palworld in early access, with the gap between application and registration as short as a single month. But looking at the patents themselves, these newer versions are updated versions of existing patents, though without a deep dive into each, it’s unclear what exactly the updates are.
At any rate, the plaintiffs, that is Nintendo and The Pokemon Company, are looking for JPY 5 million (~RM143,547) plus late fees for each patent allegedly violated by Palworld. There’s also the “seeking an injunction against the game and compensation for a portion of the damages incurred between the date of registration of the patents and the date of filing of the lawsuit” part in addition.
All that being said though, it remains to be seen if any of these details will affect the legitimacy of the lawsuit against Palworld. Shortly after the initial lawsuit, there have been legal opinions that the lawsuit is being used to send a message, though it’s unclear if the Japanese courts would think the same way.
(Source: Pocketpair, Google Patents [1], [2], [3], PC Gamer)
