Nintendo Co., Ltd., together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc., the developer of Palworld, on September 18, 2024.
Ever since Palworld was first revealed, people had been comparing the game to Pokémon. Nintendo and Pokémon Co. said they would look into the game to see if there were actually any instances of copyright infringement or other unlawful doings, and clearly both companies now feel that’s the case.
This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld infringes multiple patent rights.
Nintendo says it will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.
UPDATE: Nintendo has shared an official statement with Kotaku concerning the lawsuit. It reads as follows:
“We filed the lawsuit at this timing after careful investigation of the content that is the subject of this lawsuit. We will refrain from commenting on topics that relate to the content of the lawsuit.”
UPDATE: Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, has released a statement on the lawsuit from Nintendo and Pokémon Co.. You can read the statement in full below.
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lucius6
Good, I hope they win, F Palworld.
lucius6
19d agoGood, I hope they win, F Palworld.
kingbroly
19d agoI'm VERY CURIOUS to see what patents they're going after here. This certainly isn't the angle I expected them to take.
pc2
19d agoAwww snap, it finally happened.
tendonin
19d agoTerm of patent is 20 years from filing, meaning that this can't be related to any patents filed based on the series' origin in Red and Green. This case has to be based on something introduced after 2004.
(It would be very embarrassing if it were a patent filed for Scarlet and Violet.)
cheesus 2
19d agoSuing for what? Making a game that looked like it was developed after 2010? Nintendo needs to step up when it comes to the Pokemon franchise
hawk
19d agoI was hoping Palworld would light a fire under GameFreak and force them to compete with better products. I wasn't hoping for their rivalry to take them into the courtroom.
thegreatking
19d agoIt was about time, palworld devs are talentless thieves, they have admitted to just copy whats popular and use AI for the rest. They are creative and morally bankrupt. They deserve to lose this lawsuit, the shameless copy of pokemon is clear
ninjablaze
19d agoI'm surprised Nintendo even responded to that request for comment from Kotaku of all places. I thought they had that site justifiably blacklisted.
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ovenmitts
19d agoI hold no love for Nintendo's legal division. I think it going to be a pretty hard case to pin Palworld on patent infringement of all things. At least if we are taking character designs, I would feel copyright or trademarks would hold more water.
I'm glad Pocketpair has teamed up with Sony Music Group some time ago, hopefully, they can get access to some of those lawyers. Especially since I think the company is only like 50+ people strong.
This can definitely be added to the pile of lawsuits I'm rooting for Nintendo to lose. I would love to see David beat Goliath.
smasher89
19d agoI wonder what angle they go for, resembling characters i think they only patent more heavily towards kanto pokemon and starters (hence why there is so much repeats with them compared to other pokemon), gameplay is very different even if you catch monsters in balls, maybe its just a thing where nintendos legal department wants to keep a high budget and do something to show they are working and required said budget.
That’s the thing. It’d a patent. So something like game mechanics. They are not suing over anything like character design - those wouldn’t hold up anyways. Pokémon Co wouldn’t have a case there.
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