Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a lawsuit against “Pokémon with guns” game Palworld this week, officially kicking off a fight that’s been looming since January. Now Palworld developer Pocketpair has responded, claiming it has no idea why it’s being sued. This actually isn’t as absurd as it sounds.
In a statement released on Thursday, Pocketpair confirmed it had received notice of a patent infringement lawsuit and was investigating its claims, though refrained from specifically naming either Nintendo or The Pokémon Company.
Interestingly, Pocketpair also said it doesn’t yet know the details of exactly what it’s accused of.
“We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement,” Pocketpair wrote in its statement. “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.”
Why is Nintendo suing Palworld?
Credit: Pocketpair
Though Pocketpair’s claims of ignorance may initially seem ridiculous, they’re less surprising once you consider the nature of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s claims.
Palworld drew international attention during its January early access launch due to perceived similarities between its titular Pals and Pokémon designs. Some 3D modellers even directly compared character models, speculating that Pocketpair had stolen assets — a theory the developer has consistently denied.
However, patents don’t cover such elements, which would more appropriately be handled by a copyright. Instead, a patent infringement lawsuit is more likely to deal with technical elements such as gameplay mechanics.
Palworld‘s gameplay does have undeniable gameplay similarities to the Pokémon franchise, with both allowing players to capture and battle teams of fantastical monsters. Even so, they’re far from the only monster-taming games out there, with games such as Dragon Quest V and Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei series preceding both.
As such, the exact nature of Nintendo’s beef with Pocketpal isn’t immediately apparent.
It seems reasonable to speculate that the lawsuit may involve Palworld‘s “Pal Spheres.” To capture a Pal in Palworld, players first fight their target to lower its health and increase the probability of a successful capture. They then throw a Pal Sphere at the Pal, trapping them inside it.
As anyone familiar with Pokémon games will know, this mechanic operates very similarly to Pokéballs.
The theory that the lawsuit concerns Pal Spheres is further supported by several divisional patent applications Nintendo and The Pokémon Company jointly submitted after Palworld‘s launch. Some of the patents seem to concern mechanics such as aiming and throwing an item to capture a creature, as well as throwing an item to release a captured creature and start a battle.
Divisional patents essentially split a pre-existing patent into multiple separate ones, separating distinct inventions that were previously bundled together. Such split patents are still considered to have been in effect from the date of their parent patent, meaning they could feasibly form the basis of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s lawsuit against Pocketpair.
As noted by Japanese patent attorney Kiyoshi Kurihara in Yahoo Japan (via Automaton West), Nintendo and The Pokémon Company requested that processing for these divisional patent applications be fast-tracked.
Of course, all of this is mere speculation at present, with the exact details of the lawsuit yet to be confirmed. When previously reached for comment, The Pokémon Company told Mashable that it “refrain[s] from commenting on the matters related to the content of the lawsuit.”
Mashable has also reached out to Nintendo and Pocketpair for comment.
“It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit,” Pocketpair said in its public statement. “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.”
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