Palworld Developer Pocketpair Present Strong Defense Against Nintendo Lawsuit

The Palword lawsuit is in the Tokyo District Court right now. Nintendo has presented a slew of patents as proof that the developers ripped off their intellectual property. However, the main patent is JP7545191. This patent describes a system of capturing creatures and then releasing them into battle, but this patent was not filed until late 2021. According to Games Fray, the central argument for Pocketpair is that there have been plenty of games that used a creature capture system before the patent was awarded in 2021.

They list their own game, Craftopia, as the prime example and then give a slew of other examples. Titanfall 2, Far Cry 5, and Octopath Traveler are three of the 22 games Pocketpair claims use a similar capture and deploy system. Another point of contention for Nintendo is players being able to ride their creatures in Palworld. Pocketpair again uses the same argument, saying games like ARK, released in 2017, have already used this system, making the patent invalid.

A Lot Of Legal Jargon

Hopefully, some of this makes sense. It took me a minute to consolidate everything, and there’s so much more that is going into this lawsuit. The law is tricky, especially in an age where new ideas are hard to come by and everything feels like a rehash of something else. What stinks about this situation is that both games are awesome. Pokémon is the favorite of many, and the new Pokémon Z-A looks like another great addition to the franchise.

Palworld is fun for some of the same reasons, but also because the game has some new elements to it. Unfortunately, Nintendo is feeling threatened and has decided to take legal action. Gamers are the ones who lose here. The hope is that both games can figure out a way to coexist, and we have the ability to play two extremely fun games.

Final Thoughts

I’m sure this will not be the last legal document we have to try to interpret. While the lawsuit is only in Japan right now, it seems only a matter of time before it moves to other countries, including the United States. We’ll have to see how this defense holds up and what counters Nintendo has.