Late yesterday, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the developer of the monster-collecting open-world game Palworld, alleging it infringed upon their patents. Initial reports did not specify which patents were being infringed upon, and it turns out the defendants in the case aren't sure either.

Pocketpair issued a public response to the lawsuit this morning, claiming that they are "unaware of the specific patents [they] are accused of infringing upon," and "have not been notified of such details." They have begun "investigations into the claims of patent infringement," and while they will continue working on Palworld, they regret that they "will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit." More than that, they believe they have an opportunity to "ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas" and plan to do what they can in pursuit of that goal.

Source

 

[AmpJacked]

depends have you seen how pal spheres work in game? the design and capture animation are totally different than Pokeballs,Nintendo claims their similar but if you actually PLAY palworld like i have instead of sucking mario's fat nipples like a obediant baby you would see the difference in animation/design

I love the game dumbass. Facts are facts get over yourself. They are PokeBalls.

 

[Crystal_tofu]

I don't even see the point of this? let's be completely honest here: patenting gameplay mechanics is stupid
because especially nowadays where video game genres conflict constantly with one another especially with all the battle
royales, 3D platformers etc., there's bound to be some overlap, you have unoriginal poketubers pushing the narrative about
how this "clearly crossed the line" when there alot of pokemon clones out there that are shamelessly ripping it off and making a bag off of it yet no one bats an eye at those, hell there's a guy who runs entire website that makes a bag off of pokemon rom hacks he DIDNT make with a YT Channel and everything, but when it's something that's heavily inspired by the genre and getting just as popular, then it's a problem. maybe I'm missing something sure, but i wanna make it clear that i'm not saying this as a gamefreak hater because of the recent quality of the games but out of geniune confusion here because this really seems too harsh.

 

[ChibiMofo]

"All your codebase are belong to us" -- Nintendo's Lawyers

What's so hard to understand about that?

 

[BlusterBong]

I just found this which clearly puts nintendo (really in the wrong ) dependiing on said patent filing date a patent only last 20 years even in japanese law https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+long+does+japanese+patents+last

In the previous thread, i found what might be the exact patent they'll go for, that being this one, which was extended earlier this year, which I Initially found as this one Google Patents refer to as JP7545191B1 before doing any more digging.

there's more info about it thanks to a more recent post in the previous thread with the linked patent on Google Patents being US20230191255A1, which is the american patant of the original japanese patent JP7398425B2, which apears to be related to the previous the previous JP7545191B1 patent I found, which given how it's been only 3 years since they filed and the extension of the patent with the likelyhood of being the one they're going for, Nintendo's not going to get into any trouble and might be able to take PocketPair down in japan without any problems.

Isn't the legal systems of other regions just grand?

 

[RazorStrike]

I didn't like any of Switch Pokemon games anyway, still looking for a Ultra Sum and moon remake to transfer my old Pokemon collection over.

 

[Dud]

but if you actually PLAY palworld like i have instead of sucking mario's fat nipples like a obediant baby

Mental image of the year right here, LMAOO!

This whole situation wastes everyone's time. What a passive aggressive move on N's part. I still mean by what I said yesterday.

 

[LightyKD]

Game design ideas and techniques being patented? Yup, the industry is officially crashing. Say good bye to creativity. Can't wait till some muthafucka decides to patent the pencil, fork or spoon.

 

[AmpJacked]

Except they didn't? The spheres look more like Faberge eggs than Pokeballs. If that's really the focus of Nintendo's case, they deserve to lose and be made to compensate Pocketpair for their legal expenses.

Balls thrown to capture months.

Post automatically merged: Sep 19, 2024

They even open and close evenly down the center and shake back and forth as the monster struggles inside the ball, giving you a nice sound effect when the capture is successful.

100% PokeBalls.

 

[DJPlace]

if pikachu's not allowed to hold gun... then pal world should be able to. this is just getting fucking stupid IMO just leave people the fuck alone nintendo first emulation now picking on Indine devolpver's christ you guys stooped low.

 

[VassagoX]

I had never heard of Palworld until now. Thanks Nintendo! I'll check it out.

I wonder how many others are going to be curious and play it now. Screw Nintendough. This is just shameless really.

 

[The Catboy]

I surely hate ninty, but c'mon... Palworld is a knock off of pokemon. No one can deny that.

You can deny it if you actually played it. The only things it shared in common with Pokemon were creatures to collect and collecting creatures, otherwise its Ark mixed with BOTW.

 

[Sir Tortoise]

1: Yeah, I totally read all your posts to know what you said in other ones.
2: no, there aren't. I was there for the discourse and you all did in fact lose your shit over a 3d of a dog and the similarity between the two was they were both dogs.

I don't remember losing my shit over the thought of there being multiple dogs, but evidently I must be misremembering because you were there for the discourse and saw all of it. You even specify it's a fact, who am I to argue against such confidence.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

They'll just settle for 40% of Palworlds revenue

 

[Lodad]

IMHO, nobody should be able to patent gameplay mechanics. Also, fan games should fall under "fair use" as long as they respect certain conditions (such as making no revenue of any kind)
Code are something else and I can understand when companies want to protect their complexe algorithmes and all, but there should be a limit to what you can legally protect.

I could literally just make up some bullcrap, code and/or model absolutely nothing, draw some crap on a napkin, and get a game design patent.

 

[Lumpofcoal]

I think they are being coy about it. The most obvious one would be "catching monsters by throwing balls at them", assuming nintendo has a patent on it. That's one of the biggest parrallels that players of both games tend to draw. I believe that's also intentional on the part of the devs to evoke such a feeling and draw the pokemon crowd in. But their biggest mistake was underestimating ninty's tolerance towards it.

Many mistakenly think that nintendo is going after the concept of capturing monsters. They likely aren't. It's likely the specific method of doing so that is patented.

My guess is that palworld will change its method of capturing monsters. Maybe use some sort of vacuum cleaner to suck it in then transferring it to some kind of machine to be "tamed". At the very least, change the ball (sphere) to some other shape, maybe a cube.

 

[chrisrlink]

odd thought i'd never see the day nintendo (very blatenly) abuse the patent system in such an egregious way,now i don't feel bad about wanting to hack my switches and oddly PROUDLY get banned for it

 

[ZeroFX]

And what are being infringed?? lmao, they just did a similar game like any other, ninty is butthurt because the game seems better so modders imported the pokemons to a better game (to save them from gamefreak). I havent played it though, but it looks like it has much of what pokemon lacks.

 

[KanaKonpaku]

You know, now it makes sense as to why Nintendo released Pokemon Scarlet and Violet in such a broken state. "Look, they made a similar game that looks like our patents, they must've ripped them off!" Can't believe Nintendo is becoming Worlds.com now. Can't wait for them to sue Cassette Beasts and all the other Pokemon type games. They're closer to Pokemon by patents than Palworld is. Though we know that isn't the REAL reason Nintendo is after Palworld.

 

[M7L7NK7]

nintendo has further ruined their reputation imo.

Posts like this make me laugh, 99.9% of Nintendo's user base couldn't care less about this or any of their other lawsuits.. their reputation is fine apart from the opinions of a few hundred people online

 

[Snintendog]

Posts like this make me laugh, 99.9% of Nintendo's user base couldn't care less about this or any of their other lawsuits.. their reputation is fine apart from the opinions of a few hundred people online

no it really does. My username should be enough to show how much they have fallen for me. But on the case of the patent in JP law they can only patent someing WITHIN 12 month of the Inital concept or it goes Public Domain. so um yeah them filling the Legnds Arceus Mechanics ALL of them box,ball,IV etc In may of this year and it being approved in August this year. This is Clear patent Fraud in the JP courts. Ironically this could lead to Trademark REVOCATION Fraud goes after the IP the patent tries to protect. This might DESTROY Pokemon No matter if they win or lose this case.

If they Win Bloodbath with all the companies invoking Patent abuse. They lose to Palworld They may see MAJOR payouts and loss of IP. Dropping the case has now become a better idea now before its too late, Silently getting rid of the damaging Patents.

They already loss the good will of their supporters and their hater have even more reason to hate.