Nintendo, the company behind popular games like Pokémon and Super Mario, sued the developer of Palworld in Japan in 2024. The background involves alleged patent infringements by Pocket Pair. Now there is an update – from the USA.
What kind of lawsuit is this? On September 18, 2024, Nintendo filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocket Pair, the developer of Palworld, in Japan. It states that the game infringes several patent rights of Nintendo. Thus, the company behind Pokémon even upset its own fans. MeinMMO also reached out to lawyers regarding the chances of success for the lawsuit.
However, the lawsuit did not hinder the success of Palworld. After long speculation from fans, Pocket Pair released their game on the PlayStation 5, despite the lawsuit. In December, however, there were in-game adjustments that could be a reaction to the lawsuit: Palworld is currently in a legal dispute with Nintendo, now changing how you summon your monsters.
Now there is an update from the United States of America. There, Nintendo attempted to obtain similar patents as in Japan. That is not working out now.
23 new patents for Nintendo? The USA says No
What happened in the USA? In May 2024, Nintendo filed a total of 23 different new patents for examination in the USA. Among them is U.S. Patent No. 12,179,111, which describes aiming and capturing characters.
However, all other 22 patents were rejected by the U.S. Patent Office.
Another patent that was not filed together with the other 23 received the green light from the patent office (via gamesfray.com). This concerns a method by which virtual characters can be captured, including aiming, displaying success rates, and how it is represented when a captured virtual character starts a battle with another.
What could be the background? There is currently no information on this, but the attempt to obtain new patents in the USA could be a sign that Nintendo is preparing further lawsuits against Palworld in other countries.
The lawsuit in Japan is based on patents held by Nintendo there. However, some of these patents were secured only after Palworld had already launched in early access (via gamesindustry.biz). This could indicate that Nintendo is currently trying to secure itself with the corresponding patents in the United States to potentially also take action against Palworld there.
With 22 out of a total of 24 filed patents being rejected, it will be more challenging for Nintendo.
At the time of this news, there is no global patent law (via Lexology.com). Therefore, if a company wants to secure certain patents worldwide, it currently has to do so individually by country or region. However, there is the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), an international patent system of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that can help in securing patents in 155 countries simultaneously. Whether Nintendo is using this is not known.
As soon as there are new updates regarding the lawsuit between Nintendo and Palworld, you will read about it at MeinMMO. Despite all the hurdles, Pocket Pair continues to work on its survival hit. If you have already gone through the current content of the Spring Festival
update and are looking for new games, you might find something in our list: The 30 best survival games 2025 for PS5, Steam, and Xbox
