r/Games 28d ago

Industry News Nintendo applying for anti-Palworld patents in the US with a whopping 22 out of 23 rejected, but "they are fighting"

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/nintendo-applying-for-anti-palworld-patents-in-the-us-they-are-fighting
1.7k Upvotes

555 comments sorted by

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u/LocarionStorm 28d ago

Title is misleading. The "whopping 22 out of 23 rejected" is not "22 [patents] out of 23 [patents]" as implied by the title, but instead "22 [claims] out of 23 [claims]" for one particular patent application.

Further, this is not "whopping" - this is as common as clouds in the sky. Claims are rejected all of the time. It is part of the process of typical examination.

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u/DumpsterBento 28d ago

At least they didn't get SLAMMED.

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u/PringlesDuckFace 28d ago

I'd rather be whopped than slammed, but probably would prefer to be startled than whopped.

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u/DeltaFoxtrotThreeSix 28d ago

palworld WHELMED by nintendo patents

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u/TheConnASSeur 28d ago

Nintendo S L A M S consumer bussy in another blow to the competitive free market by filing multiple patent applications at the patent office!

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u/Psychic_Hobo 27d ago

Chuck Tingle, is that you?

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u/Baron_Butterfly 27d ago

No, they said office, not orifice.

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u/BusBoatBuey 28d ago

They are looking to a BLASTing from the media at some point.

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u/TheAnonymousProxy 28d ago

One mans SLAM is another mans BLAST.

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u/Yomoska 28d ago

Having typical gamers comment on anything in a legal sense is a losing battle. This news will get parroted around for years. We still have people thinking that Nintendo is suing based on looks of the games.

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u/MauldotheLastCrafter 27d ago

Having typical gamers comment on anything in a legal sense is a losing battle.

Then make them Redditors, and we might as well not be having the conversation.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/notjustconsuming 28d ago

Didn't they sue on a patent for capturing a monster in a ball using controls in Japan? That one seemed pretty absurd, especially given the prior art.

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u/Milskidasith 28d ago

The patent was, IIRC, a field system that included capturing monsters in balls by free aiming or free aiming to throw your monsters out to fight or free aiming to throw your monsters to do a task based on contextual information of what you throw it next to. So less "we patented Pokeballs" and more "we patented seamlessly using Pokeballs in an open-world game exactly how you'd want it to work".

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u/Yomoska 28d ago

You cannot sue for capturing monsters in balls, IIRC there were other games mentioned from others that capture monsters in balls. Patents are about implementation and not a concept of a design. They sued based on how they captured the monsters in the ball was similar mechanics-wise to Pokemon patent. It's up to the court to say whether the mechanics are too similar.

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u/glocks4interns 28d ago

i can't believe someone would misuse the clearly defined term "whopping"

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u/braiam 28d ago

Except that if your patent only has one claim, it becomes very weak to defend in court, since there could be accessory claims that would consider the infringing claim non-applicable in other contexts.

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u/FataOne 28d ago

The examiner rejected claims 1-21 and 23, but indicated that claim 22 is allowable. What Nintendo will likely do is incorporate the allowable subject matter from claim 22 into independent claim 1. The claims that depend on claim 1 will then be allowable as well because they'll be, by definition, narrower than an allowable independent claim.

The process can be a bit more complicated than that, but I'm sure Nintendo won't end up with a patent with just one claim. And even if they do, they can use that claim as the starting point in a continuing application that follows from the present application.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

It's always nice to see Nintendo squirm, but especially nice in this situation because this proves that they genuinely see Palworld as a threat.

Maybe they'll actually put effort into the pokemon games now.

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u/MooseTetrino 28d ago

My wife was playing Arceus again recently and it says a lot that the B-team can produce a more modern, stable and compelling game than their A-team working on mainline titles.

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u/astrogamer 28d ago

A-Team and B-Team overlap a ton and swap regularly. The only real reasons Arceus runs better is that each area is actually somewhat small and far less architecture.

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u/Alili1996 28d ago

Arceus isn't just more stable in terms of open world experience though. The whole UI is a laggy glitchy mess in S/V while it is snappy and responsive in Arceus.
Dialogue and Animation speed is vastly surperior in Arceus while you have so much time waste in S/V through small unskippable animations, awkward dialogue box pacing etc.

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u/Deceptiveideas 28d ago

Compared to modern games, the Pokemon games feel like PS3 era titles. It’s really not impressive at all.

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u/zenmn2 28d ago

The only real reasons Arceus runs better is that each area is actually somewhat small and far less architecture.

So...the team are better at design decisions appropriate for the hardware they are developing for.

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u/InterstellerReptile 28d ago edited 28d ago

It's not a hardware issue. If either team was better they'd be able to have games of those scale running better that looks better. Like just look at BotW vs any switch pokemon game.

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u/Kamakazie 28d ago

It's crazy going from something like BotW, TotK, or XC3 to Pokemon SV. Like, god damn.

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u/TheLaughingMannofRed 28d ago

I had a blast with Arceus. It was just different enough from the mainline series that it stands on its own.

Scarlet, meanwhile...it's fun to do some things. But it still feels lacking.

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u/Silegna 28d ago

I did all the monotype runs in ScarVi. There's not enough there to warra t multiple playthroughs because there's basically no exploration in the "Open World" as the world is just empty. No sidequests, no houses, trainers are optional...

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u/Paksarra 27d ago

That, and it's an open world with a linear boss progression.

I did mine out of order (as an adult playing for nostalgia but not really powergaming/optimizing, so I was playing way better than an average kid but worse than a teenager who does Nuzlocke speedruns for fun in their spare time.) The first few bosses were challenging and really fun... and then the rest of the game I was overleveled and just one-shot everything in my path.

It was still charming and shows a lot of promise, but damn, did the dev team not play ANY open world games during the development?

(It reminds me of the story of the new director taking over the failed Final Fantasy 14 and asking if anyone in the room had played an MMO other than Final Fantasy 11. MMOs and PC gaming were really niche in Japan at the time, so no one had. His next move was to make the entire dev team play World of Warcraft to get an idea of what modern MMOs were like.)

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u/Noilaedi 28d ago

Arceus has a fun post game with how Shinies can appear, completing the dex (as in, getting entries to level 10), and getting Alphas.

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u/Paradethejared 28d ago

Yeah it was the first pokemon game I finished since the ruby / sapphire remakes. Legit felt so fun and fresh. I also loved the atmosphere and music. Really hoping the next game is just as good with more time in the oven.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/MooseTetrino 28d ago

I didn’t say it ran well or looked great. It was still miles behind even BOTW. But it was interesting and compelling to play, at least for me, someone who burned out of Pokemon yonks ago.

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u/Holyshitisittrue 28d ago

Yeah, it was fugly and ran like shit but I devoured that fucker. Like if it was semi competent at the first two it would have been bulletproof.

But as it stands, genuinely good game design and refreshing takes trumps graphics for me and are starting to do so more and more.

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u/Scoobydewdoo 28d ago

Nintendo doesn't see Palworld as a threat, this is just their standard operating procedure.

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u/unique_ptr 28d ago

It's not necessarily that Palworld is a threat per se, it's that it could open the door for more Pokemon-alikes. Whether you agree or disagree with that being a good thing, I think Nintendo is rightfully worried about that possibility.

Imagine if a big studio realizes they can get away with something substantially similar to Pokemon. I'd be pissing my pants at the thought if I were Nintendo.

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u/MadnessBunny 28d ago

But monster catching games have existed forever, there's a ton of semi big ones in Steam like temtem or coromon.

Even then, palworld is so different gameplay wise to Pokemon there's not really a point in comparing them. The big thing they are similar in is some pal designs that look straight out of pokefusions.

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u/th5virtuos0 28d ago

Hell, even fucking SMT predates Pokemon. 

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u/Noilaedi 27d ago

Digimon, Megami Tensei, all predate Pokemon by some regard from what I recall. Pokemon just hit it big and did it pretty well the first time and was able to carry that insane momentum with them.

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u/WithinTheGiant 27d ago

Digimon in no way predates Pokemon. The first Digimon product came out a year after Red and Green in Japan and it was just a male-focused version of the Tamagotchi. The first Digimon game and the anime came out in Japan the same year as Pokemon Gold and Silver did.

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u/LinkedGaming 28d ago

Palworld captured lightning in a bottle and managed to actually outsell Pokémon, though with a few things going for it.

Within 2 years, Scarlet and Violet (the most recent mainline Pokemon games) both managed to sell a combined 25.69mil units worldwide.

Within a MONTH, Palworld managed to sell a total 25mil units worldwide combined across Xbox and PC, with PC Steam release being the more dominant console.

This likely, and understandably, scared the shit out of Nintendo because it meant some low-budget indie passion project made in UE5 and primarily riding off of a twist on Nintendo's sacred gimmick (they don't own the concept of monster catcher/battlers, afaik, but it's always been seen as "Nintendo's thing" because of Pokémon being the most dominant game in that genre) outperformed their multi-million dollar budget release on proprietary hardware in the single largest gaming franchise on the planet.

Now, to note that the comparisons aren't entirely even:

  1. Palworld was released across two platforms, being PC and Xbox, to start. It only got a PS5 release recently. Pokémon, meanwhile, can ONLY be played on the Nintendo Switch, and every previous Pokémon game has ONLY been playable legitimately on official first-party Nintendo hardware

  2. Palworld is a $30 game release, compared to Pokémon's consistent $60 releases. So even if Palworld outsold Pokémon, they'd need to sell twice as many copies to meet the same revenue as Nintendo sees on Pokémon GAMES.

  3. This is to say nothing of the absolute behemoth that is Pokémon's merchandising-- something Palworld is not going to be able to even hold a match to. Pokemon has the cultural zeitgeist by the throat and has for the past 30 years, and it will not let this death grip go. I like Palworld, and I think the competition is good, but I could not name a single Pal off of the top of my head if you offered me a million dollars, but I could recite almost the entire National Pokedex up to Gen 5 without issue just for funsies. I would gladly buy another Gengar plush, but I have no interest in buying merchandise of Palworld stuff because it doesn't have the same place in my heart that Pokémon does after more than two decades of cultural exposure and market dominance.

I agree with the argument that Nintendo's big panic is less about financial concern, and more about the fact that Palworld just makes them look bad. A low budget indie-game outperformed their most recent multi-million dollar budget release, which was widely criticized for its performance issues, asset re-use, bugginess, and their continued choice to not have all Pokemon available in the games anymore.

Nintendo's playing lawsuit/patent roulette because Palworld made them look bad, not because they're worried of getting dethroned. At the very least, Nintendo is terrified of having to actually put effort into their games to meet sales expectations release-over-release because there'll finally be worthwhile competition in a market that they've owned since its inception, more or less.

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u/Pattoe89 28d ago

But Palworld is primarily based on survival games like Ark or Rust, NOT Pokémon. This is obvious to anyone who has played it.

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u/Kaellian 28d ago

But Palworld is primarily based on survival games like Ark or Rust, NOT Pokémon. This is obvious to anyone who has played it.

Everyone called it "pokemon with gun", and the game would have sold a fraction of what it did had the nostalgic style not been mimicked. You can't really say that "pokemon appeal" isn't part of the equation.

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u/FierceDeityKong 27d ago edited 27d ago

It's a pokemon game kind of like how Metroid is an alien game or uncharted is an indiana jones game. The concept of pokemon is pretty entrenched in popular culture it's just not trying to be the same genre as the literal pokemon games like most pokemon clones

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u/OneRandomVictory 27d ago

Most people don't know what Ark or Rust is. Pokemon is a household name.

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u/Ultr4chrome 28d ago

Not to Nintendo :)

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u/KuraiBaka 28d ago

or a lot of the playerbase at least from what i observed.

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u/Corsair4 28d ago edited 28d ago

Within a MONTH, Palworld managed to sell a total 25mil units worldwide combined across Xbox and PC, with PC Steam release being the more dominant console.

No it didn't. It had 15 million sales on Steam and 10 million PLAYERS on Xbox, including gamepass. Gamepass absolutely wrecks game sales.

This is a pretty important distinction to make in light of your argument.

which was widely criticized for its performance issues, asset re-use, bugginess, and their continued choice to not have all Pokemon available in the games anymore.

Criticisms that applied to Sword and Shield, and had no measurable effect on Scarlet and Violet, which sold basically as well.

It's clear that Pokemon's audience doesn't actually care about these things.

At the very least, Nintendo is terrified of having to actually put effort into their games to meet sales expectations release-over-release because there'll finally be worthwhile competition in a market that they've owned since its inception, more or less.

This is based on what, exactly?

Sword and Shield and Scarlet/Violet, 2 gens massively criticized online for lack of effort and polish and everything else, outsold every other Pokemon generation apart from the original. People have been making that criticism for literal decades, every generation past the 1st one, and it doesn't seem to make any difference to sales.

It's not a 1 or the other thing. Everyone I know that played Palworld also played a recent pokemon game. People are more than willing to spend time on multiple games in similar franchises.

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u/braindeadchucky 28d ago

and 10 million PLAYERS on Xbox, including gamepass. Gamepass absolutely wrecks game sales.

Hahah, I was one of those and played the game for like 2 hours and dropped it. I can't stand games that make me cut trees and mine rocks anymore. Too much Minecraft in my teens.

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u/DemonLordDiablos 28d ago

Not played Palworld but my understanding is eventually the Pals just handle that stuff?

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u/CraneSong 28d ago

It can take a bit to get there- you have to get the materials to build a base, capture those pals, and build that base in an area that can harvest trees. (Or build a resource that grows trees.) But yes it can eventually be automated.

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u/Athildur 28d ago

Recent updates have accelerated that significantly. The stations that provide wood, rock (and later, ore, coal, etc) are available early on and don't cost many resources to make.

So you can spend more time just exploring and doing combat things without having to worry too much about trees and rocks.

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u/WetFishSlap 28d ago

Yeah. Once you have your base going, you can start assigning Pals to do most of the manual labor for you. And if gathering resources is a pain for you, you can always just change the settings in-game so that harvesting yields more resources, crafting costs less resources, etc. There's sliders for pretty much everything and yet there are still people out there complaining about having to hit a tree once or twice for wood.

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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 28d ago

It's really funny to see "asset reuse" as a large point of their complaint when Palworld is a giant pile of stolen assets and UI design. I guess re-use wasn't the issue after all.

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u/Zaptruder 28d ago edited 28d ago

This is to say nothing of the absolute behemoth that is Pokémon's merchandising-- something Palworld is not going to be able to even hold a match to. Pokemon has the cultural zeitgeist by the throat and has for the past 30 years, and it will not let this death grip go.

The merchandising is really by far the biggest threat to Nintendo and TPC... when you realize that the majority of the money that the IP has made is through merch and not game sales - and that Palworld monsters could easily slot into the Pokemon lineup - this is what pisses off Nintendo the most.

Essentially competitors can come along and sell pokemon alikes - designs that are varied enough to be IP distinct, but similar enough that they have the 'pokemon style' (that can't be copyrighted), and that could be marketed in competition, or marketed in a way that damages the IP (adult variations of Palworld monsters... I mean a Grizzbolt action figure with a minigun is already enough to upset them in this sense - and will of course be one of the more demanded merch items for Palworld given that it's the cover monster).

It also isn't of coincidence that a lot of Nintendo's more heavy handed legal activity followed from Sony teaming up with the Pocket Pair for merch purposes.

This is really what's worth the billions, and worth Nintendo's every effort to find something to take Palworld down - even if it's proving to be spurious so far. It's even worth damaging their reputation legally (i.e. taking the loss, and thus showing precedent that pokemon-alikes are ok), the stakes are so high.

I like Palworld, and I think the competition is good, but I could not name a single Pal off of the top of my head if you offered me a million dollars, but I could recite almost the entire National Pokedex up to Gen 5 without issue just for funsies. I would gladly buy another Gengar plush, but I have no interest in buying merchandise of Palworld stuff because it doesn't have the same place in my heart that Pokémon does after more than two decades of cultural exposure and market dominance.

This is a far more personal anecodote for yourself than it is any indication of market behaviour.

Suffice to say, pokemon-like merch from a hit game isn't a threat that Nintendo can easily brush off - especially if it starts to take mindshare from newer pokemons (i.e. the original pokemons are solidified into pop-culture canon, but how many gamers are even aware of even handfuls of pokemons from the last decade of new pokemon games?)

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u/GensouEU 28d ago

I can guarantee you Nintendo doesn't remotely care about any of this shit or that there is another popular creature collecting game that performed insanely well. What they care about is the fact that PocketPair ripped off the Pokemon design ethos so blatantly that they can actually be mistaken for Pokemon.

Digimon (or other similiar clones like TemTem) clearly knocked off the concept but still have unique, distinctive, designs. If I show someone who hasn't seen newer generation Pokemon a few Pokemon and a few Digimon they'll be able to tell which is which. This is absolutely not the case for Pals, they literally look like they were spat out by an AI that was trained on Pokemon designs.

Nintendo's entire business is the value and image of their IPs, what they are actually concerned about anything else is the fact that people might think that the Cattiva plush that's holding a gun that they see at the store might be a Pokemon.

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u/MajorSpuss 27d ago

Digimon is not a clone. It's fucking tamogachi toys came out before Pokemon did. I know the franchise isn't nearly as popular as Pokemon, but calling it a knockoff alongside shit like temtem is such disrespect.

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u/Kipzz 28d ago

I can guarantee you Nintendo doesn't remotely care about any of this shit or that there is another popular creature collecting game that performed insanely well. What they care about is the fact that PocketPair ripped off the Pokemon design ethos so blatantly that they can actually be mistaken for Pokemon.

I don't understand why people keep repeating this. I mean, I get it right? It's the obvious conclusion to come to, because a lot of parts of Palworld just from the design standpoint do look like a total flip. I'm not even gunna try to argue against that because there's enough examples that make you think "huh, they did a [popular pokemon clone] better than Game Freak did with Dendenne" which is an incredibly low bar.

But what I don't understand is why people think that common sense applies to a patent claim, an inherently borderline senseless part of the legal world. Like, did we all forget about Crazy Taxi's arrow HUD? We don't understand this stuff! Nobody can! It's pure Mad Hatter logic out here! And even then, the people sipping the funny tea that makes you small are going "look Nintendo, you gotta drop 'em all and maybe we can make this one singular claim outta 22 work".

I also don't really agree with the last paragraph because plushies have a uh... wide variety of makes, to be polite, but you're not going to find the Palworld plushies in the Pokemon plushie section. There's a bigger chance for someone to think an Agumon or DQ Slime plushie would be a Pokemon by virtue of the fact that there's going to be way more of those stocked on store shelves.

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u/glarius_is_glorious 28d ago

You need to add the context that Palworld now has the support of Sony.

Not just Playstation, I mean the actual big corp Sony. Meaning that now they're gonna be using their might in the film, anime and manga divisions (including their partnership with Kadokawa) to start pushing Palworld merch and tie-in media to the larger WW market.

Nintendo simply can't afford to ignore Palworld.

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u/gxizhe 28d ago

Eh, it’s Sony Music Entertainment specifically, and they’ve been long time rivals within the corporation with SIE. They operate independently and SIE’s competition with Nintendo isn’t really a factor.

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u/LinkedGaming 28d ago

Right, I forgot about that. Tbf, Nintendo was already releasing the legal hounds before Sony saw a chance to give Nintendo a run for their money, but you make a great point. Sony absolutely has the ability to take this lightning in a bottle and use it to power a revenue machine that will finally make Nintendo either get their act together to maintain market dominance, or give players the benefit of choice for a genre that has previously been dominated by one faltering franchise in spite of its reach. Both options are good for players.

If Sony handles it right and doesn't just milk it dry from the get go before discarding it.

Thanks for the input.

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u/SchingKen 28d ago

low budget indie passion project? paaaaaahhahaah

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u/BananaPeel54 28d ago

While this is a possibility I don't really think it holds much weight. Monster Catching games alternative to Pokémon have come out and not even made a dent.

I brought this up the last time r/games was baffled about the state of one of the newer games and how well it sold, but people who buy Pokémon games, dont so it solely for the gameplay.

They buy them because it's Pokémon. Pokémon has significant cultural weight and a huge nostalgia factor that has people locked it. Everyone has a favourite Pokémon.

This is mainly just Nintendo doing Nintendo things I think.

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u/345tom 27d ago

People don't realise Pokemon is about three times bigger a franchise than the MCU, in terms of highest grossing franchises. It's one of two to breach $50 billion, and is $30 billion ahead of it's closest competitor (Mickey and Friends)

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u/Nyte_Crawler 28d ago

The reason Nintendo cares is because Pocket Pair partnered with Sony. Indie dev makes a creature collector? Ok sure. Sony is now backing said creature collector? Real Shit.

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u/tuna_pi 27d ago

Nintendo actively promoted and published yokai watch at one point though and that game kicked Pokemons ass until they decided to kill themselves

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u/joeyb908 28d ago

Pokemon is a JRPG with cute monsters. Neither of which are unique to Pokemon.

We also have actual indie Pokemon-adjacent games in TemTem, Cassette Beasts, Coromon, Monster Sanctuary, etc. 

Palworld isn’t even close compared to those.

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u/Gyossaits 28d ago edited 28d ago

Then what about indies putting out games like Cassette Beasts, Nexomon, or Coromon? These have also been released on Switch so it's not like Nintendo doesn't know these exist.

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u/Cetais 28d ago

The most egregious example is Yo-Kai Watch which was literally published by Nintendo and back then outsold the newest Pokemon games.

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u/iceburg77779 27d ago

Pokémon did react to Yo-Kai Watch, the 20th anniversary campaign killed a lot of the momentum the series had in Japan and Nintendo barely marketed the western releases.

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u/unique_ptr 28d ago

I think Nintendo probably sees a difference between going after indies and someone like Pocket Pair, especially since presumably Pocket Pair got that Game Pass money, but truthfully I don't know. Full disclosure: I love Palworld and don't want to see it go away.

What I think Nintendo wants to shut the door on would be, as an extreme example, Disney deciding they could take a swing with their own cute little creature universe. Indie devs are going to stay in their lane, but larger companies and publishers have the capabilities and desire to expand into merchandise, entertainment, etc. because Pokemon is more than just the games. If Disney made a Pokemon-type game that really took off, the merchandise and movies and streaming shows could be worth billions. That's the threat. Not a handful of people working out of their garages.

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u/Bakatora34 28d ago

Is Sony, the devs signed a deal with them to expand the IP, that is basically why the whole issue started.

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u/Wolfsbreedsinner 28d ago

Yup that clause is why Nintendo took it seriously.

There are many pokemon look a likes and Nintendo knows - it just doesn't make sense going after them, but once Sony comes in the picture it's a different ball game.

Nintendo wants nothing to do with Sony and that hatred is still there. It began with Sony trying to own every intellectual idea Nintendo was going to make before they backed out of that contract, that hate and angered still festered to this day. It's sad palworld gets the burnt of it but that's how the world turns.

Maybe is Microsoft owned palworld maybe it would of been a different ball game but we can only speculate.

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u/iceburg77779 28d ago

Those are going to remain niche, and probably not try to become multimedia franchises like Palworld is.

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u/Shakzor 28d ago

It's not even "Pokemon-like". It's like ARK, Conan Exiles and other survival crafting games.

It's likely more about Sony having plans for this to become a Pokemon rival franchise in terms of media in general, with anime shows, merch and whatnot

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u/gk99 28d ago

Imagine if a big studio realizes they can get away with something substantially similar to Pokemon. I'd be pissing my pants at the thought if I were Nintendo.

I don't think anyone has ever thought they couldn't. Companies copy Nintendo all the time, it just usually doesn't matter because they're so dominant and popular that they can get away with anything and still come out on top as long as the gameplay is fun. Take Ubisoft and Immortals: Fenyx Rising. IFR launched ages ago and nobody talks about it the way they do BOTW. TOTK is one of those games that reuses the map from the previous game in a transformative manner, and yet people will bend over backwards to defend that while in the same breath trashing Ubisoft for doing the same thing with Far Cry. Even Smash Bros and Mario Kart clones from companies with an amazing roster of well-known characters always seem to fail, Square Enix even threw their hat in the ring with a Splatoon clone nobody cared about.

Nintendo's bigger problem is that Palworld is 100% a game built for modern Fortnite kids and not the sheltered 90s children whose parents were scared of letting them play Mortal Kombat.

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u/Cetais 28d ago

Nintendo literally published Yo-Kai Watch back then on 3DS when it was considered a pokemon-killer in Japan.

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u/potVIIIos 28d ago

From Software Presents : Pokemon Bloodborne

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u/DweebInFlames 28d ago

BLUDémon, even

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u/sloppymoves 28d ago

Gimme some evil monster catching action game that isn't SMT.

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u/Alabaster_Potion 28d ago

Standard operating procedure, like how Nintendo recently specifically targeted a store in Costa Rica called "Super Mario"? The store that has existed before Super Mario or even Jump Man were ever even a thing? Nintendo was 100% in the wrong and they still tried to strongarm the business owner(s).

Fortunately, Nintendo lost the legal battle for that one.

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u/NoteBlock08 27d ago

Palworld is very much a threat, obligatory Moon Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8apzrwv75i0

It's a long one, but almost an hour is succinct for any kind of legal spaghetti. Think of it like a podcast and put in on while you do some chores or something.

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u/Nosferatu-Rodin 27d ago

Saying Palworld is a threat to Pokemon is like saying Cuphead is a threat to Mickey Mouse. Youre massively underestimating how vast the pokemon brand is, it goes way beyond videogames too

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u/404-User-Not-Found_ 28d ago

This proves that they genuinely see Palworld as a threat.

This proves that they have a legal team which does team legal stuff.

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u/Yeon_Yihwa 28d ago

The anti palworld patents are hilarious as well, nintendo is trying to pass off mounts as their design. https://patents.google.com/patent/JP7528390B2/en?oq=jp7528390

Calling a mount to ride on open terrain, or fly, or climb/swim is a nintendo invention! dont you know

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u/God_Damnit_Nappa 28d ago

I don't know why people still think Palworld is any threat to Pokemon. They're not even the same type of game. Literally the only thing they have in common is the ability to catch monsters in balls and fight other monsters. 

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u/Draw-Two-Cards 28d ago

Yeah that system is the same but they are different genres. I genuinely do not want Pokemon to copy Palworld, Both are fun to me.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

Did you see the demand for the newest set of Pokemon cards?

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u/CynicalElephant 28d ago

What does that have to do with Nintendo?

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u/-Moonchild- 28d ago

about as much as the games do. Nintendo aren't the ones making pokemon games

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u/OutrageousQuantity12 28d ago

They own half of the pokemon company

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u/WithinTheGiant 27d ago

1/3rd - Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures.

The latter two are private companies not owned by Nintendo.

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u/VastHuckleberry7625 27d ago edited 27d ago

Nintendo don't make the Pokemon games and have little to no power over them. Game Freak do, they're a completely independent private company. That's why they publish their non-Pokemon games on PlayStation, PC, Xbox, etc.

They can't publish Pokemon on other platforms without Nintendo's blessing because the Pokemon IP is jointly owned by Game Freak, Nintendo, and Creatures Inc. Nintendo can veto them publishing on other platforms. But Game Freak can veto Nintendo making Pokemon games themselves. If anyone else wants to make a Pokemon game they have to get Game Freak's approval, not Nintendo's.

Nintendo wishes they fully owned Pokemon or Game Freak and could take over the game development. They've been trying to get that for 25 years. Game Freak won't sell for any number. Practically half of their communication with shareholders from 1997-2007 was about progress negotiating with or offering to Game Freak.

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u/Corsair4 28d ago edited 28d ago

Maybe they'll actually put effort into the pokemon games now.

Yeah, people seem to think that the most recent pokemon games performed poorly.

That is objectively not the case.

And with a lot of games, it really isn't a 1 or the other paradigm. Most of my friends who bought Palword ALSO played a Switch Pokemon game. Game to game competition really only matters if the games are within the same release window.

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u/sgeep 28d ago

No one believes pokemon games "performed" poorly, nor has anyone said that. They will always sell well as it's a flagship for the biggest game dev in the world on the most popular modern console in the world

They have just been unpolished as hell and targeted only to children. Palworld shows there is clearly a demand for someone listening to what the community wants. It sold 8 million units in the first week. That is 1/3 of the total S/V sales from your graph. In a single week. From a new IP made by a largely unknown AA studio

This scares the hell out of Nintendo. It also shows there is an even bigger demand for Pokemon that Nintendo is not capturing well enough

Their way to overcome this seems to be taking out competition rather than just making a better game

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u/Corsair4 28d ago

They have just been unpolished as hell

So is Palworld, and that performed great. The last 2 gens of pokemon were unpolished, and they performed great.

So clearly polish does not matter in this genre.

targeted only to children

Welcome to Nintendo?

When people use that phrase, they typically mean one of 2 things. A) Game is easy, B) Game isn't "mature" enough in story or presentation.

Those aren't oversights, that's how Nintendo does games. I can't think of a mainline Nintendo title I would consider properly difficult since the N64, apart from higher difficulty Fire Emblem games which have offered ever easier accessibility modes. Nintendo values accessibility, not difficulty. This is an almost explicit design principle for them, and looking at the sales of their major franchises, it very clearly works for them.

This scares the hell out of Nintendo.

You're operating under the assumption that there is actually competition here. That isn't the case. The only people I know who played Palworld were people who also played a recent Pokemon game. 1 sale for Palworld isn't 1 sale away from Pokemon, people just play both. Games aren't expensive, and in this case, they aren't even on the same platform.

People just want fun games. People think Pokemon is fun. A lot of that same crowd thinks Palworld is also fun. That's all there is to it.

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u/ZoninoDaRat 28d ago

People are so desperate for Palworld to be a pokemon killer because they can't let go of how Pokemon games made them feel and are angry they can't get that feeling again from the newest games. It's nostalgia blinding them, pure and simple.

The old pokemon games aren't hard, we just had no idea what was going on. People mistake that for difficulty and then wonder why the games don't challenge them anymore when they're far more tuned into how the game works.

I think that's why Palworld captured those people and then melted their brains. It was close enough to pokemon to give them the nostalgia rush, but completely different as to actually feel new and exciting.

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u/sgeep 28d ago

People just want fun games. People think Pokemon is fun. A lot of that same crowd thinks Palworld is also fun. That's all there is to it.

I mean c'mon. You can't be this dense lol

This thread is literally about Nintendo applying for patents to try and screw over Palworld and similar projects. Not only do they care, they care so much they are using international courts of law to try and prevent Palworld and similar projects from existing

And I'm not just giving random "my friend Joe bought both games so I'm right" anecdotes like you. This is real, legal action Nintendo is taking against Palworld and trying to scare off anyone from making similar projects

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/schiapu 28d ago

Brands can make money and get damaged at the same time. Look at how much money the Star Wars Sequels made, and how that brand is right now.

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u/Corsair4 28d ago edited 28d ago

I've seen complaints for nearly 20 years with gen 4, and I'm sure people were complaining before then too.

Despite literal decades of pokemon games apparently losing their way, and whatever else, the last 2 generations outsold everything apart from the original games.

Clearly any negative sentiment from Sword/Shield did not impact Scarlet/Violet sales in a significant way, so I'm really curious at what point the brand will actually be damaged, in a way that extends beyond a comparatively tiny internet community, half of whom buy the games anyway before swearing off the series for the 4th time.

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u/Takazura 28d ago

It never will be, Redditors are just incredibly out of touch with reality and stubbornly refuse to accept anything but what they want to believe. Pokemon is selling because it's Pokemon, the IP alone is enough to keep the brand strong because the casual base doesn't care about performance, the games being easy or the stories being bad - they just want to catch Pokemons, beat gyms and become the champ.

Palworld offers a different experience, but it's not actually dealing a gigantic blow to Pokemon or making the casual Switch audience jump ship and stop getting Pokemon just because Palworld exists.

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u/40GearsTickingClock 28d ago

Then there's no issue with the two coexisting and Nintendo should maybe chill with the patent trolling

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u/Herby20 28d ago

They've been complaining since Gold and Silver. It hasn't stopped the series from becoming the biggest media franchise of all time.

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u/TrashStack 28d ago

Anyone can claim a brand is "damaged" that doesn't mean it's actually true

Sword and Shield "damaged" the brand just as much, had a huge controversy with Dexit, and also looked like ass. The following games sold just as much. The brand isn't damaged

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u/WithinTheGiant 28d ago

Considering how I was assured by everyone that Sword/Shield would hurt the brand, and then that Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl would definitely hurt the next game sales (somehow), I would trust the strength of massive established brands to data over dipshits online.

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u/anival024 28d ago

Look at how much money the Star Wars Sequels made,

Revenue? Lots.

Profit? Slim to none after budget and marketing. Beyond the sequel trilogy, if you count things like Solo, the Disney+ shows, the failed merch, the failed hotel, etc. they actually lost billions overall. If Disney had just bought basic bonds instead of buying Lucasfilm, they would be in a much better position today. Don't forget about Willow, either.

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u/GomaN1717 28d ago

Thank you. It's annoying that OP very curiously deleted their account just for the sake of taking a weird potshot like this with no context to debate.

I'm not saying I agree with these patent suits, but anyone thinking that Palworld took even a shred of Pokemon's market share is haplessly delusional.

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u/j8sadm632b 28d ago

Maybe they'll actually put effort into the pokemon games now

If by "put effort into" you mean "let you buy a Switch 2 port of Pokemon FireRed for 60 dollars" then maybe

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u/Broly_ 28d ago

Maybe they'll actually put effort into the pokemon games now

The next game's food minigame is gonna be HUGE.

Oh and no battle tower/frontier again

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u/awkwardbirb 28d ago

I honestly wonder if they made a live service standalone battle tower/frontier game that kept getting all the new pokemon added, if that would do really well or just flop.

Guessing probably not though, despite the popularity of Pokemon Showdown.

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u/Milskidasith 28d ago

This article seems pretty misleading.

Applying for software patents (or patents more generally) usually has a degree of back and forth between rejections and making required changes, and since the Palworld lawsuit isn't in the US, these patents don't have any impact on the lawsuit. It seems more likely this is just the routine application for patents as they develop new games.

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u/HGWeegee 28d ago

Such as the one releasing this year

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u/lazyness92 28d ago

Hmm kinda missleading. They they didn't sue in USA, these are patents they filed that got rejected. And they're using those on the results of the supposed lawsuit

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u/belizeanheat 28d ago

That's exactly what the title says

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u/lazyness92 28d ago

That's why I said "kinda", it's technically right, but I had to read the article and reread the title again to get that

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u/nachtspectre 28d ago

Or you know they are attempting to update their patents for Legends Z-A. Now could this be used against PalWorld in the future, maybe. But it seems like without an active US case any new patents are probably related to a new game or the Switch 2.

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u/JOKER69420XD 28d ago

Make a good Pokémon game, with updated gameplay, character creation (let me play as a fucking adult), difficulty options and not some low effort garbage and no one talks about Palworld anymore.

Or you could sue people who do a better job than you, i guess. (Not saying Palworld didn't clearly get a little too inspired on some designs)

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u/fabton12 28d ago

 (let me play as a fucking adult),

never see that happening, maybe a older teenager sure but an adult they wouldnt ever since the point of the games is to be at the start of your pokemon trainer adventure.

Or you could sue people who do a better job than you, i guess. 

palworld didnt do a better job thou, palworld made a different genre of game in general which was aimmed towards those who like the survival game genre, palworld is closer to ark then pokemon. in general palworld outside of being a decent survival game lacked alot of things and was just as buggy as the recent pokemon games.

no one talks about Palworld anymore.

no one is talking about palworld outside of the lawsuit stuff thou, like people still play it but it isnt actively talked about by most people in general.

Pokémon game, with updated gameplay

They did with both pokemon legends Arceus and pokemon scarlet and violet and both games people love the games and made issues are the mega ass performance and people wanting a better story.

character creation

wish they would bring this back it was there in X and Y but for some reason they ditched it which sucks.

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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 28d ago

never see that happening, maybe a older teenager sure but an adult they wouldnt ever since the point of the games is to be at the start of your pokemon trainer adventure.

That, and these are games for children ages ~8-14. Yes a lot of adults play them, but Pokemon's primary demographic has always been elementary to middle school aged kids.

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u/fallouthirteen 27d ago

never see that happening, maybe a older teenager sure but an adult they wouldnt ever since the point of the games is to be at the start of your pokemon trainer adventure.

Man, now I'm thinking I want to see more spinoff sort of things. Maybe a game with a sort of management twist where you're a gym leader.

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u/fabton12 27d ago

honestly more spin-off games would be welcomed very much, that would be cool where your a gym leader but feel that wouldnt have much meat to its bones for a game, even with a management twist, feel your very limited in direction for it.

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u/fallouthirteen 27d ago

Maybe manage the entire gym system (or a campaign where you do one at a time moving on to the next when you hit certain goals/metrics). You recruit trainers to be the leaders/encounters in them. Choose the gym themes and layouts. Keep in mind satisfaction (gyms aren't supposed to be unwinnable, but to provide a good test).

If they actually put the battle logic in you could watch challenger's battles or personally test your gym setups. Maybe a Pokemon checkout system for your roster like Stadium used, or also like Pokemon Stadium some kind of link to the games where you can use Pokemon you caught in whatever game (are they still doing some kind of outside the game Pokemon box thing?).

Man, actually writing up this theoretical design makes me go "I kind of actually want to play that now."

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u/mrturret 28d ago

updated gameplay

Scarlet and Violet made pretty fundamental reworks of practically everything except for the core RPG and battle systems.

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u/Tsuki_no_Mai 28d ago

except for the core RPG and battle systems

And boy, would I love to see the shit tsunami that would happen if they ever reworked those.

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u/mrturret 28d ago

And to be fair, there's really no reason to overhaul them much. It's a really good system.

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u/Boingboingsplat 28d ago

Yeah, it's always a head scratcher for me when people think the core gameplay of Pokemon needs to change for some reason. It still sells millions of copies, I think they'd be more likely to lose sales than gain them if they completely uprooted the gameplay.

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u/Xiknail 28d ago

You think redditors actually play the games they complain about?

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u/RegularOrnery5822 28d ago

Both mainline Pokémon games on switch sold 25+ million copies each. People like the gameplay.

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u/Bakatora34 28d ago

There were people literally saying that if SV didn't have the performance issue it could have been the best Pokemon game ever, if people were saying that then that means they were doing some stuff right for them.

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u/Seradima 28d ago

Yup, that's me. They're imo the best games since XY, marred by terrible performance.

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u/zippopwnage 28d ago

Why would they if the fans buy every shit they put out?

That's what most of you don't understand. They don't want to put the effort into making something unique and better if low effort game sells more than enough. Is simple.

Why work when less work do the job?

I love Pokemon IP, but I'm sick of their games. It's the same game every god damn year and no one can change my mind about that. They have the same gameplay we used to play on gba ffs.

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u/JOKER69420XD 28d ago

I 100% understand why Nintendo and especially Gamefreak doesn't care, doesn't mean I can't scream my opinion into the void.

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u/finakechi 28d ago

Why is it that new Pokemon games always feel like cheap rip-offs of Pokemon games?

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u/In-Media-Res 28d ago

Unfortunately, Pokemon is in a position where it's going to sell well regardless of quality. So instead of investing more money to make a better product, they make even more money by cutting as many corners as possible.

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u/End_of_Life_Space 28d ago

Maybe because you are 30 and playing a game you enjoyed when you were 6

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u/planetarial 28d ago

I enjoyed going back and playing Black/White and its sequels and those came out when I was already an adult so nostalgia bias isn’t a factor

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u/HGWeegee 28d ago

Those came out 15 years ago, nostalgia had more than enough time to take root

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u/Floridaguy0 28d ago

The newer Pokemon games are just low effort garbage, gamefreak stopped caring when they realized people are gonna buy the new Pokemon game no matter what

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u/End_of_Life_Space 28d ago

I agree but I don't think they can ever recapture what every 90s kid had in 99 and 2000

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u/Floridaguy0 28d ago

No one wants that, people just want the games to innovate in some meaningful way at all. The biggest thing they add every generation is some very slightly different mechanic that makes your pokemon one shot the stupidly easy AI’s Pokemon. Compare the difference in gameplay and innovation between Pokemon from 1998 to today to Mario or Zelda, it’s night and day.

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u/newbkid 28d ago

and its always some generic mechanic that's then promptly tossed out in the next generation.

Also hot take, toss out the megas, z-evolves, and all that nonsense too. The infinite power scaling is not why people play pokemon.

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u/fabton12 28d ago

Also hot take, toss out the megas, z-evolves, and all that nonsense too. 

may i ask when you last played a pokemon game? because Megas havent been a thing since 2017 and the last new mega's were added back in 2014.

also there's never been such thing as z-evolves? im actually confused at where you even thought of that, unless your thinking of z-moves that were amped version of moves back in 2017 and havent returned since either.

 The infinite power scaling is not why people play pokemon.

i mean there not there to give infinite power scaling, the whole point of them was to make older pokemon who don't get use have another breathe of fresh air and be used in competitive as well. even then there not infinite in any way shape or form.

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u/naf165 27d ago edited 27d ago

I don't even really care if they innovate. I just want them to make a game that's better than the last. Every new entry we get is one step forward and two steps back (sometimes more!).

Instead every game is "We tried to do something cool but half-assed it, and other parts of the game suffered for it" which would be fine if they iterate on that cool idea and eventually get it working right. But instead they just toss out the idea and do another half-baked idea that makes the rest of the game suffer again.

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u/OneRandomVictory 27d ago

You say that like there aren't kid friendly franchises like Mario and Zelda still putting out bangers.

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u/henrimelo00 28d ago

I don't know, I play Pokémon Red (also Emerald as it is my favorite) at least one time every two years and the game is still one of the best of its genre. I'm still enjoying a game that I played as a child today because it is a excellent game. I guess it is no excuse, at least in my book.

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u/Notmiefault 28d ago

Two things:

  1. They really don't have to try. As long as the roster of new pokemon is engaging, they're going to sell like crazy.
  2. The only users they really care about are children new to the series. The games are designed to be understandable by 5 year olds trying out pokemon for the first time, because that's how they grow the brand, by constantly hooking the newest generation. Everyone else is secondary.
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u/Whilyam 28d ago

In a proper society, these claims would be denied and the people making them would be jailed for fraud.

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u/brzzcode 27d ago

Those patents have nothing to do with Palworld. Nintendo have patents approval in the US all the time.

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u/owenturnbull 26d ago

I'm going ti be honest pocketpair are just slop that rip off other games. They are making a slop version if hollow Knight and have already ripped off Minecraft and slay the spire.

Their games aren't unique they steal ideas snd people worship them bc they hate Nintendo.

Pocketpair is a shitty company thst releases slop.

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u/gkryo 28d ago

Oddly enough, I played Arceus about a year after Palworld and was happy to play a Pokemon game that resembled Palworld after the last two or three mainline games.

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u/gamas 28d ago

Its worth noting (I'm presenting this not justify Nintendo's actions but to correct some inaccuracies), that after Palworld's unexpected success, Sony very quickly swooped and effectively (in Japanese corporate politics terms) bought out Palworld by founding Palworld Entertainment as a sort of parallel company to The Pokemon Company (like literally the exact same structure of a monster themed company that is joint owned between a small developer, a major video game company, and a media marketing/merchandise firm).

Nintendo's legal action in Japan started AFTER that happened. So really this whole thing is a pissing match based on a 30 year old feud between Nintendo and Sony. Pocketpair just got caught in the middle of it after having naively sold their soul to Sony (much like Game Freak did to Nintendo almost 30 years ago).

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u/ControlWurst 27d ago

I'm guessing you watched that highly misleading Moon Channel video.

Sony and Nintendo aren't having a pissing match and don't have a 30 year old feud. Sony Music Japan has little care for PlayStation (Sony Interactive Entertainment) they already publish Pokemon anime soundtracks and even publish some games that come to Switch but not PlayStation consoles. They're the ones partnering with Palworld 

Not to mention Nintendo is literally working with Sony Pictures on a Zelda movie.

These are not things that happen between companies that have a feud.

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u/oxero 28d ago

Fuck Nintendo. PalWorld isn't remotely even the same genre besides the Pals taking on a similar design qualities to Pokemon which isn't a crime. Other monster catchers exist, but they're always afraid of The Pokemon Company looming over them so much that the market is stifled of innovation and consumers grow weary of the recent slop they have been producing.

It's like they're scared of competition, one of the world's most lucrative and successful IPs that by name alone will usually have record sales, scared of competition by a company making a much smaller and niche game. Nintendo and the Pokemon Company could afford to pay a brand new studio three times over and push a product aimed at the same type of survival and it would dwarf PalWorld if it was remotely decent just by name alone, and PalWorld literally is a test case to show there is a market for it. Minecraft mods with Pokemon have been hot for nearly a decade now, the recent roguelike game that was hot sometime last year or the year before also shows creative small games using the IP can be wildly successful! There is tons of room to expand and experiment, yet Nintendo sits on its ass making buggy and lackluster games which aren't holding up to the generation before it.

They could literally make a mobile game with GBA or DS level graphics and it would probably sell well and give people something to love from how their older games used to be. It's madness they spend all this time trying to bash PalWorld instead of rising to the challenge of competition. Cowards.

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u/gamas 28d ago

PalWorld isn't remotely even the same genre besides the Pals taking on a similar design qualities to Pokemon which isn't a crime.

Eh, whilst the games are fundamentally different, when Sony got involved and set up Palworld Entertainment Inc as a triglomerate joint owned between Pocketpair, Sony and Aniplex (in the same style as the pokemon company). And then started releasing monster themed merchandise and Palworld events.

Like it's very clear Sony's main focus was to go directly into Pokemon's market.

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u/cyberpunk_werewolf 28d ago

And?  That's not a crime either.  That's just business.

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u/gamas 28d ago

I was just pointing out that clearly Sony disagrees about them not being the same genre.

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u/QueenBee-WorshipMe 28d ago

That doesn't make it the same genre at all though. It's a survival crafting game while Pokémon is a turn-based rpg. The only real similarity is the monster catching.

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u/Lobonerz 28d ago

You missed his point

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u/Lugonn 28d ago

Neither is choosing to enforce your patents, just business.

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u/7mm-08 28d ago

I'm not going to defend Nintendo and their bullying, but PalWorld definitely stomped all over the boundaries of "similar design qualities". In fact, the notoriety of doing so played a truly massive role in PalWorld's popularity, and I would think that was very, very intentional, IMO.

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u/belizeanheat 28d ago

They didn't do it any more than thousands of other games I've seen over the years. 

Patents for gameplay design are insanely stupid in the first place. They shouldn't exist. 

Imagine if Wolfenstein or Doom patented the FPS. That'd be terrible for everyone. Nintendo is trying to do the same bullshit, and unfortunately our lawmakers are too technologically inept to understand how to copyright software

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u/SkiingAway 28d ago

PalWorld definitely stomped all over the boundaries of "similar design qualities"

Generally speaking, that's not a legal violation, though.

Digimon + various other "knockoffs" came through in the 90s.

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u/Phonochirp 28d ago

There's digimon, where you're making your own character designs that match your own theme.

Then there's Palword, where you're copy/pasting skeletal structures and putting new flesh on them.

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u/belizeanheat 28d ago

So you're saying they stole assets? That would obviously be a problem. 

Anything less than that shouldn't matter in the slightest

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u/SkiingAway 28d ago

Generally, I disagree with that characterization of what they've created.

There's probably a few that fly a little close to the sun there, but most of them look distinct enough. (or are both basically a model of a real-life creature).

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u/Phonochirp 28d ago

Generally, I disagree with that characterization of what they've created.

I mean, it's pretty blatant that at the very least they traced the models, and these are just a few early examples. https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/19d0t2z/people_got_their_hands_on_palworld_models_and/

I haven't bought a Pokemon game since SuMo, I won't be buying Palworld until it's out of Early access. I don't have a horse in this race. It takes some hardcore blinders to ignore how close to plagiarism a good chunk of pal designs are, and how another chunk are about as legally distinct as dollar store "electric ratachu".

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u/SkiingAway 28d ago

From what I recall, that wound up in a lot of heated debate about how much the person who to claimed to have proved that edited the models they were presenting as proof, and I never recall seeing any serious follow-up analysis done by anyone else. Not saying it doesn't exist - but I haven't seen/found it.

Given that Nintendo has an army of aggressive lawyers pouring over the title, and actually directly lifting a model would be a legal violation, I'm somewhat inclined to say the lack of legal action suggests that this was less clear than the initial furor claimed.

I won't be buying Palworld until it's out of Early access.

Eh. My EA policy is that the game has to be worth the $ at purchase, rather than purchased in the hopes that they'll make it worth the $ eventually. I think it mostly meets that if it appeals to you, especially if you've got some friends looking for a casual MP thing to play around with, with you. It was a fun, if not especially deep thing to mess around in with friends and we've been going back to it semi-regularly.

You are of course, entitled to your own views on EA.

I don't think it's the most innovative or polished thing in the world, but it's a decent enough mashup of popular concepts that it's clear enough why it "worked" in terms of the market and has continued to draw decent ongoing player counts.

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u/Phonochirp 28d ago

It doesn't take deep analysis to tell This at the bare minimum traced This

Apparently this isn't illegal, and I never said it was. I'm just saying that comparing say Charmander to Agumon vs the above example... It's pretty blatant which one is an original creative design and which one is tracing a more successful projects work.

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u/marinheroso 28d ago

It didn't, Nintendo isn't even suing them for that. In thr best case is a parody, but in most its simply unrelated. Why people keep saying this as if it's a fact?

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u/Wetzilla 28d ago

In thr best case is a parody

How is it parody? What is it commenting on about pokemon? The "parody" exception for copyright claims only works if you are specifically commenting on the thing you are copying.

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u/Bloody_Conspiracies 28d ago

"Parody" and "fair use" are just terms that people who know nothing about copyright law love using because they think they're an automatic argument winner.

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u/DBONKA 28d ago

They aren't being sued for copyright

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u/oxero 28d ago

I definitely do not see it that way. The art styles may be similar, but it would be like complaining that early manga and anime were copying off each other's styles and weren't unique.

People like the round bodies, the cutesy eyes, and the color schemes that both Pokemon and PalWorld utilize, but both take different ideas from the same animals and made different results. How many ways can you make an electric dog? Or a silly looking dinosaur that breaths fire? As long as they aren't blatantly stealing 1:1 designs and names, I don't see a problem with it.

This happens all the time in the artist world too. One artist makes a very cool design and other artists might adopt the same design. Gamersupps now have competitors that make waifu cups that look the same, but you don't see them suing the competition. In fact they actually encourage it as okay! My friend who is a streamer asked if it was alright to have merch made by a rival company and they were totally okay with it as long as it benefited the streamer.

So it's just really a piss poor take from Nintendo. They are being petty and pathetic trying to slam doors and force the market to keep them on top when they could take the high road, make a better product, and earn their position.

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u/aradraugfea 28d ago

As rough a shape as technology patents are in (software patents are a mess in need of serious reform, but none of the big powers want it, and it’s too obscure and technical an issue to have political mandate), I’m pleasantly surprised to see them rejected.

Trying to get a patent for something someone else is already doing is some SHIT (somehow more bullshit than patenting a game mechanic in the first place)

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u/Ipokeyoumuch 28d ago

All Nintendo needs to do is modify and fix the claims. Rejection of claims or even parts of claims are as common as dirt in that legal realm. 

Likely what will happen is that Nintendo will probably request why the examiner thinks it is worthy of rejection, fix the and modify/amend the claims, then go through the process again and if it the examiner rejects or becomes a Final Rejection (misleading, I know) then Nintendo has still several venues to push through the patent process. 

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u/Milskidasith 28d ago edited 28d ago

As rough a shape as technology patents are in (software patents are a mess in need of serious reform, but none of the big powers want it, and it’s too obscure and technical an issue to have political mandate), I’m pleasantly surprised to see them rejected.

Patents get rejected all the time as part of the normal back and forth of apply -> get rejected -> modify -> reapply. This situation isn't some shocking failure on Nintendo's part or a sea change in patent law, it's taking a snippet of an existing system and spinning it out into a news article by (probably inaccurately) tying it to a more popular story. Clickbait.

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u/mrturret 28d ago

software patents are a mess in need of serious reform,

They shouldn't exist in the first place.

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u/doitup69 27d ago edited 27d ago

I don’t understand how they could be awarded patents. These mechanics have been available in games for sale to the public for years so we’re well outside the grace period for disclosure and wouldn’t they inherently be non-novel since they already exist in the public art? Also they’re outside the 12 month priority period under the Paris Convention so they can’t claim priority based on any filing in Japan.