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.
UPDATE: Palworld dev Pocketpair says Nintendo and Pokemon Co. are looking for 5 million yen plus late payment damages concerning patent infringement for a game program that lets you throw an item to catch a character. You can see Palworld’s full press release on the matter below.
As announced on September 19, 2024, The Pokémon Company and Nintendo Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the “Plaintiffs”) have filed a patent infringement lawsuit against us. We have received inquiries from various media outlets regarding the status of the lawsuit, and we would like to report the details and current status of this case as follows:
1: Details of the Lawsuit
The Plaintiffs claim that “Palworld,” released by us on January 19, 2024, infringes upon the following three patents held by the Plaintiffs, and are seeking an injunction against the game and compensation for a portion of the damages incurred between the date of registration of the patents and the date of filing of this lawsuit.
2: Target Patents
- Patent No. 7545191
- [Patent application date: July 30, 2024]
- [Patent registration date: August 27, 2024]
Patent No. 7493117
- [Patent application date: February 26, 2024]
- [Patent registration date: May 22, 2024]
Patent No. 7528390
- [Patent application date: March 5, 2024]
- [Patent registration date: July 26, 2024]
3: Summary of the Claim
- An injunction against Palworld
- Payment of 5 million yen plus late payment damages to The Pokémon Company
- Payment of 5 million yen plus late payment damages to Nintendo Co., Ltd.
We will continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings. Please note that we will refrain from responding individually to inquiries regarding this case. If any matters arise that require public notice, we will announce them on our website, etc.
UPDATE: In an interview with PC Gamer, Pocketpair global community manager John Buckley talked about the “depressing day” they found out about the lawsuit.
“Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan, so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain. It changed a lot of things for us. We were just about to release the PlayStation version, we were just about to go to Tokyo Game Show, so obviously we had to scale back a little bit and hire security guards and stuff like that.”
[Pocketpair global community manager John Buckley]
UPDATE: Pocketpair has shared another update on the status of the Palworld lawsuit, and it details more changes heading to the game. You can see the full statement below.
UPDATE: Following Pocketpair’s announcement of more features being removed from Palworld due to the lawsuit with Nintendo, modders have gone in and added back gliders, which were just yanked last week.
UPDATE 7/25: The legal battle between Nintendo and Pocketpair continues, as Nintendo has now changed up the verbiage in their patent pertaining to ride-switching mechanics. This is a legal move as long as the change doesn’t introduce any new concepts or technical matters. That said, IP consultant Florian Mueller at GamesFray mentions that this usually only happens when a litigant feels the patent is “at a fairly high risk of being deemed invalid in its original form.” (h/t IGN)
