Nintendo’s Pokémon patents could be the basis for Palworld lawsuit

The Pokémon Company and Nintendo sue Palworld developer Pocketpair in a Tokyo court for patent infringement, the companies jointly announced Wednesday. Pocketpair responded to the lawsuit in a press release, saying it was “unknown which specific patents” it allegedly infringed. Without court documents – or details from The Pokémon Company – there’s no real way to know exactly what Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are looking into, but the use of patent Infringement (as opposed to copyright Injury) means that this case probably isn’t about creature designs.

The conversation about Palworld mainly revolves around his Pokémon-like friends, who actually bear similarities to Pokémon. PalwordLamball, for example. Its appearance is similar to that of Pokémon Wooloo – and in addition, both Are Creatures that can be captured and battled in the early game. Crucially, however, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s announcement on Thursday made no mention of copyright infringement; instead, it spoke of patent infringement, suggesting that the lawsuit may be about the similarities in game mechanics rather than the creatures.

Nintendo owns a lot of patents around the world, but this particular legal case is currently only pending in Japanese courts. Nintendo’s patents cover all sorts of technical processes it uses in its games, be it information processing, game memory, controller subtleties, touchscreen usage, character shadows, or game mechanics. It’s been months since Nintendo said it was investigating Pocketpair and Palwordand that is probably because they have studied the game intensively to see what could apply under patent law.

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company own a patent in Japan (and have an application pending in the U.S.) covering a crucial and fairly obvious mechanic of their Pokémon games — catching and releasing Pokémon — making it a likely issue in this litigation. (In the U.S., the original patent application is still under review and was returned to the applicant on August 13 with a “non-final rejection,” meaning it is not an active patent.)

The patent uses complicated—but precise!—language to depict exactly what is covered, including lots of drawings and graphics to describe the processes that lead to the action on the screen. Here’s the official summary:

In a first mode, a target direction in a virtual space is determined based on a second operation input, and a player character is caused to throw in the target direction an object that affects a field character arranged on a field in the virtual space based on a third operation input. In a second mode, the target direction is determined based on the second operation input, and the player character is caused to throw in the target direction a combat character that fights based on the third operation input.

Simple line drawings show a person throwing a Pokéball at dinosaurs and dragons. It is likely, but still unconfirmed, that this patent relates to PalworldThe sequence where you catch friends is very similar to the Pokémon games. And in the patent application from The Pokémon Company and Nintendo: A person lines up the throw at a circular target and then throws a Pal Ball directly at the creature. When a Pal is sent into battle, everything happens in reverse – just like in Pokémon games.

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company also published another continuation application in late August that relates to riding Pokémon. The Pokémon riding patent documents show a person riding a bird, a fish, a horse, and something that looks like a sloth that climbs. This one seems a little less relevant to the Palworld Case; “Riding Pals” doesn’t resemble any of the drawings particularly, except perhaps the horse or the fish. But in both cases, the drawings are backed up by pages of detail that accurately describe those situations and inputs – the details that make them unique in the eyes of the applicant.

Serkan Toto, CEO and industry consultant at Kantan Games, told 404 Media that Nintendo would likely be “much more technical” in its infringement case. “Nintendo would have examined every single action in the game, they would probably have reverse engineered it and just found ways to sue these people,” Toto said. Nintendo sued White Cat Project developer Colopl for patent infringement in a five-year legal battle; this might be a good reference when looking at the Pocketpair lawsuit. In that case, according to Pocket Gamer, Nintendo invoked five patents related to “touchscreen joystick functionality, multiplayer connectivity, rest mode confirmation screens, character attacks based on touch input positions, and a shadow effect on characters hidden behind the game’s geometry.” Nintendo and Colopl settled their lawsuit in 2021 for a reported 3.3 billion yen, according to Siliconera. Beyond that fee, Nintendo will also have to license Nintendo’s patents going forward.

But until Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, or Pocketpair release more information about the lawsuit, it’s all speculation. Nintendo told the press that it “will not comment on matters related to the substance of the lawsuit.” Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Pocketpair did not respond to Polygon’s request for further details.

Update: This story has been updated to include additional context.