Nintendo vs. Palworld: ‘Killer Patent’ May Be About the Mechanic of Catching Pokémon

Following Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s shock patent lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair, and Pocketpair’s subsequent statement claiming it had no idea which patents it’s accused of infringing, analysts believe they’ve worked out which patent Nintendo plans to use to win its case.

Kiyoshi Kurihara, a Japanese patent attorney and consultant on intellectual property spoke to Yahoo Japan on the lawsuit (translated by Automaton), and pointed to a “killer patent” that revolves around the mechanic of catching Pokémon itself.

“It seems like it would be hard to avoid if you want to make a Pokémon-like game, and it’s easy to infringe if you’re not careful,” Kurihara is quoted as saying.

In general gameplay terms, Palworld’s survival and crafting mechanics are more like those of Ark than Pokémon. After Palworld’s huge launch earlier this year, comparisons were made between Palworld’s Pals and Pokémon, with some accusing Pocketpair of “ripping off” Pokémon designs. But rather than file a copyright infringement lawsuit, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have gone down the patent route.

Kurihara identified four divisional patent applications that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company jointly registered after Palworld’s launch in January. A divisional patent contains isolated content from an already registered parent patent. The patent Kurihara believes is the focus here, Patent No. 7545191, describes, per Automaton:

Aiming a capture item (Poké Ball) at a character placed on the field (Pokémon), releasing the capture item in a direction determined by player input, judgment of whether capturing is successful or not upon contact between the capture item and Pokémon, and changing of the Pokémon’s status to “owned by the player” when capturing is successful. In addition, the patent also covers the mechanic of having capture probability displayed to the player, regardless of whether it uses colors, graphics or numbers.

Patent No. 7545191, alongside three related others, were only approved in August, which might help explain why it’s taken this long for Nintendo to announce its lawsuit. The parent patent of the four divisional patents was registered in December 2021, and thus, Automaton points out, are legally effective against Palworld, which launched January 2024. Nintendo has yet to officially reveal the patents it alleges Pocketpair has infringed.

It is worth noting that Palworld does include a mechanic that involves throwing a ball-like object (called a Pal Sphere) at monsters out in a field to capture them, and this may prove the key to the lawsuit. Kurihara suggested Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed the four division patents for specific use in litigation against Palworld developer Pocketpair. As for Pocketpair, it’s said it will begrudgingly investigate the patent infringement claims while continuing to update Palworld despite the lawsuit, and apologized to players left concerned about the future of the game.

Here’s Pocketpair’s statement in full:

Regarding the Lawsuit

Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement.

We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.

At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details.

Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.

It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.

We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair.

Players are now left wondering whether Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s lawsuit will force Pocketpair to remove Palworld from sale or even shut the game down.

Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC earlier this year, breaking sales and concurrent player number records in the process. Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe has said Palworld’s launch was so big that the developer couldn’t handle the massive profits the game generated. Still, Pocketpair acted swiftly to capitalize on Palworld’s breakout success, signing a deal with Sony to form a new business called Palworld Entertainment that’s tasked with expanding the IP.

Speaking of Sony, Palworld is heavily rumored to be set for a PlayStation launch announcement at this month’s Tokyo Game Show. Pocketpair teased a PlayStation release back in June, so this would come as little surprise. TGS runs from September 26 to 29.

While player numbers have declined somewhat since Palworld’s explosive launch, it remains one of the most-played games on Steam (Microsoft does not make Windows PC and Xbox player numbers public), sitting comfortably in the top 100 on Valve’s platform.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.