When Palworld was first announced, lots of people were predicting that it’d attract Nintendo’s ire. After all, the core concept was basically Pokémon with guns, with many of the creatures in question sharing a strong resemblance to characters from that series.

As a result, just about everyone expected some sort of legal fight with Nintendo here. Whether it be copyright related, trademark related or something else entirely.

But now it’s officially happened, and it seems to make no sense at all. Why? Because not only has Nintendo announced they’re suing Pocketpair for Palworld, but it’s apparently for patent infringement instead.

Yep, instead of a lawsuit over character designs or trademarks or other obvious IP rights, the company seems to be going the patent infringement route instead. It’s a strange choice to say the least, and makes us wonder what exactly they’re suing for here. Do they own the rights to the idea of Poke Balls and creatures being kept in tiny containers for gameplay purposes? Is the dispute about some sort of monster battling or catching setup in general, despite the lengthy precedent in that area?

Or is there something else to the story entirely?

Honestly, we’re not sure, and the official Nintendo press release doesn’t exactly clear things up there either. Indeed, all it says is that:

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.

With no indication of what said patent rights could even be. We did find a few patents assigned to the Pokémon Company here, but the majority of them involved features exclusive to Pokémon Sleep or multi game trading mechanics, neither of which would be relevant to Palworld.

So, we’re not sure what they’re suing Pocketpair for here. Nothing strikes us as obviously infringing as far as game mechanics are concerned.

Perhaps it’s a mistranslation and patent rights also cover copyright and trademarks in Japan? Maybe, but given the original article also uses that wording in Japanese, it seems unlikely here. It’d be a monumental screw up on the part of their legal team, and probably weaken their case in some sense or another.

Either way, Nintendo and the Pokémon Company are now suing Pocketpair Inc over Palworld. We’ll let you know how this case progresses in due time.

Source:

Filing Lawsuit for Infringement of Patent Rights against Pocketpair, Inc (Nintendo Official Site)