Amid the ongoing PalWorld lawsuit with developer Pocketpair, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have just been awarded a new patent that will make things messier.
To get readers up to speed, The Pokémon Company and Palworld developer Pocketpair have been in a legal spat for the past few months, with Pokémon alleging Palworld infringed on base Pokémon game functions such as using Poké Balls and riding monsters across the world. The latest development (before today) in the lawsuit is that Pocketpair has said it will “continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings.”
However, it appears The Pokémon Company has been given the US Patent that governs base Pokémon game mechanics, the U.S. Patent No. 12,403,397 (found and detailed by Games Fray) details that Pokémon now has the patent rights to summoning “sub-characters” and having them enter the state of a battle. The exact patent line reads, “controlling a battle between the sub character and the enemy character by a second mode in which the battle automatically proceeds.” This could mean sub-characters (in this case, Pokémon) commencing a battle with one another. Or it could be the exact definition of the Pokémon Legends: Arceus battle system.
The patent wording is left significantly vague, as if to blanket the entire genre and potentially make games that have been released in years prior (like Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei series) susceptible to patent infringement. Games Fray‘s patent analyst, Florian Mueller, who described it as “shocking,” and said, “The mere fact that the patent has been granted is bad news for the videogame industry.”
Fans are also mad about the patent. Irate players have taken to Reddit to voice their dissatisfaction regarding the US Patent. On a thread titled “Last week, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company received a U.S. patent on summoning a character and letting it fight another,” on r/Games, many users have voiced their opinions on the issues presented by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company being granted such a broad-reaching patent.
One inflammatory commenter said, “At this point let them patent 3d platformers and games where you can buy items. Absolutely insane abuse of the awful United States patent system,” and all other fans who have commented have expressed worry in the thread. While the patent outlines the exact steps a title needs to take to potentially infringe on the rights of the patent holder (which sounds a lot like the legal jargon version of Pokémon Legends: Arceus and the Pokémon Legends: Z-A battle system), fans (and patent analysts) are worried about the precedent this could set for the gaming industry as a whole.
While this patent has been granted, it remains to be seen what effect it will have on gaming or the ongoing Pocketpair lawsuit.
