Palworld developer Pocketpair has provided an update on the ongoing legal action between it and the combination of Nintendo and The Pokemon Company, which claims to reveal the exact patents that the game about pals has been accused of infringing upon.
In case you’ve been living under a rock with your pals, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair over Palworld in September, alleging that the game “infringes multiple patent rights”. There’s been a lot of speculation as to how it might play out, but all we can do is wait and see.
Now, Pocketpair has published a report on its website in which it outlines a number of alleged details about the ongoing legal proceedings. “The Plaintiffs claim that ‘Palworld’, released by us on January 19, 2024, infringes upon the following three patents held by the Plaintiffs,” it writes, “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.”
The next bit is the most interesting, as it sees Pocketpair go on to identify those exact three patents, revealing that they’re Nintendo patents 7545191, 7493117 and 7528390. I know, all of those immediately rang a bell for me too. At least the first one – 7545191 – isn’t as much of a mystery, with Automaton having reported that it appears to relate to the gameplay mechanic of catching an in game character (a Pokemon, in Pokemon’s case), by lobbing a thing (in the case of Pokemon, that’s the Pokeball) at them which can then make them owned by the player if the move is successful.
All three are listed as having application and registration dates between the start of February and the end of August 2024, meaning that all of that took place after Palworld initially released, though obviously ports to other platforms have arrived subsequently.
In addition to the injunction against Palworld mentioned above, Pocketpair details that payments of “five million yen plus late payment damages” to both Nintendo and TPC individially are being sought in the suit, meaning the total payment facing Pockepair if it were to lose the case could be around ten million yen.
“We will continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings,” Pocketpair stated near the close of its post.