Palworld has managed to reach the 1.0 release despite the lawsuit from Nintendo. Now, the company behind Pokémon is in an even worse position in the legal dispute, as the Japanese office has unusually rejected a new patent.
What kind of patent has been canceled this time? Nintendo and The Pokémon Company had a few unexamined submissions at the Japanese Patent Office recently. Patent JP,2026-077713,A has now been unusually clearly rejected. It concerns an in-game system for capturing monsters.
Specifically, the patent office states that the idea is not innovative and already exists in the world. The patent would be granted when selecting a Pokéball at the bottom right corner of the screen, letting Ash throw it, and if the ball hits Pikachu, it catches Pikachu.
However, this idea has existed long before Nintendo implemented it in games. As an example, the office cites a YouTube video from 2013 that makes Nintendo very angry: The video shows a fake Pokémon game – a copyright infringement. However, this is not a reason for the patent office to agree with Nintendo, and they even add more remarks.
This clarity is also considered very unusual by Japanese patent attorney Kiyoshi Kurihara (via Yahoo, only Japan): The patent office suggests that Nintendo is behaving unprofessionally. Furthermore, the examiner wrote that Nintendo is arguing against all reason
. The attorney assesses this as extremely harsh, and such formulations do not occur in the normal patent process.
Nintendo is annoying its compatriots – now has hardly any chances
Is Nintendo’s lawsuit still ongoing? Indeed, Nintendo’s lawsuit against Palworld is still ongoing in Japan. What started as a large-scale lawsuit against the creature collector with firearms has noticeably shrunk by now:
Nintendo sued Pocket Pair, the developers of Palworld, in September 2024 based on patents. They naturally defended themselves, removing several features from their game in the meantime.
Meanwhile, Nintendo tried to obtain more patents in Japan as in the USA. Meanwhile, the lawsuit now only refers to an old version of Palworld
and allegedly involves only $30,000 USD.
As soon as there is new information about how the legal dispute between Nintendo and Pocket Pair is progressing, you will of course read about it on MeinMMO. How do you feel about it? Do you think Nintendo still has a chance to win? Feel free to write it in the comments.
If you now want even more Palworld, we might excite you for another article. While MeinMMO editor Dariusz Müller plays the game like a 4-year-old, MeinMMO editor Sophia Weiß struggles with taking too much time: Mrs. Weasley says “don’t dawdle”, but Palworld unfortunately invites exactly that and I love it
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