Nintendo Continues to Pressure Palworld with New Patents
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- Nintendo is continuing to register patents to strengthen its claims against Palworld
- The newest patent under Nintendo talks about players being able to catch virtual characters and use them to fight.
- The company has previously announced that Palworld has infringed multiple patent rights.
Nintendo has gotten a new patent in its arsenal that can be used to sue Palworld for being a game that’s way too similar to Pokémon. This patent was published on February 11.
As explained by Gamesfray, the patent number 12,220,638 B2 and talks about players being able to aim with an item that can capture another virtual character and then using those characters to fight. This is essentially the gameplay loop of Pokémon where the players can catch Pokémon and then use them to fight other trainers. Palworld also has a system that’s pretty similar to this, where a player can use a Palsphere to capture Pals and then use them to fight other Pals or bosses.
This patent was filed in July 2024 which is about six months after Palworld’s release. In September 2024, there was a post by Nintendo showing their intent in suing Pocketpair, Inc. as they’ve deemed that Palworld has infringed multiple patent rights.
The patents in question were not enumerated in the post, however, the aforementioned patent might be one of them. As of now, Nintendo is still trying to file even more patents in the U.S. to potentially strengthen their claim when they decide to take Pocketpair to court. But it’s currently not sure whether these requests will be granted by the patent examiner, the person deciding whether a patent should be given or not.
Nintendo is no stranger to filing patents and suing people that might threaten any of their intellectual property. In January 2024, Nintendo sued a small Costa Rican supermarket with the name Super Mario. However, Nintendo lost that legal battle.
