Nintendo Patent on Monster-Summoning and Fighting Mechanic Granted Too Quickly, Says IP Lawyer
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Key points
- Video game patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon believes that Nintendo got the patents way too quickly.
- Nintendo getting its hands on these patents might be dangerous for the whole video game industry.
- Immediate use for the patents would be the ongoing lawsuit between Nintendo and Pocketpair.
Speaking to PC Gamer, video game patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon said that the granting of US patent 12,403,397, a patent on summoning a character and making it battle for you, was granted way too quickly.
Additionally, the US patent 12,409,387, a patent on players riding and flying systems similar to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, has also been granted this week. Sigmon added that while this patent faced pushback, it was minimal. Its initial application was deemed invalid because it was too similar to Tencent- and Xbox-related patents, but after interviews between Nintendo and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, it was allowed.
Sigmon believes the granting of the patents is an indictment of American patent law, saying, “They have been an embarrassing failure of the US patent system.”
He believes that US patent ‘387 would be obvious to a “Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art,” a legal fiction in patent laws that refers to a hypothetical person having the normal skills and knowledge in the particular technical field, without being a genius, and whether the patent would be obvious to them. If it were, then the invention would not be patentable.
US patent ‘397, on the other hand, is more contentious, as it covers summoning and battling with “sub-characters.” While the patent suggested that it’s based on the Let’s Go! mechanics of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, similar systems exist in other games.
Games Fray’s Florian Mueller believes that the granting of the patent can be harmful to the industry, as games such as the upcoming Honkai: Nexus Anima can be accused of infringing due to its riding mechanic and similarities to Pokémon.
An immediate use for the patents granted to Nintendo would be the ongoing lawsuit against Pocketpair. Games Fray said that it tried to access the Japanese case files of the lawsuit, but the file was with the judge and was thus unavailable to the public.
Pocketpair has already changed its gliding mechanics and how Pals work due to the lawsuit, which resulted in players developing a mod to restore them.
