Palworld Developer Details Patent Infringement Claims From Nintendo's Lawsuit

The sphere's/pokeballs I get but "riding on creatures in an environment" feels very wish-washy

Wish you guys all the best!
I seriously hope Nintendo loses this. And if you guys win the case, then please as payback, release it on the switch 2 🤣.
I will buy many copy's to play as Santa for a give away haha.

@Solomon_Rambling I think the injunction against selling the game it would be the bigger hit against Palworld than the compensation. (even if the sales have slowed down considerably)

@the_chosen_one, you're all over the place. Who would releasing the game on switch 2 be payback against?

Nintendo is scum

@RubyCarbuncle I'd say Palworld isn't innovating anything other than how much you can get away with taking from other games before getting sued.

Actually what is the biggest issue from Palworld until Nintendo sued them?
What specific violations did Palworld do?

I bet Palworld made Nintendo angry because of the plagiarism. But patent infringments are taken more seriously in terms of law, I guess, so this is the result.
I hope Nintendo wins this.

The minimal amount that Nintendo is suing Pocketpair for seems to help prove the theory that this is more about sending a message to Sony that they could win a legal battle if they tried to make Palworld into a Pokemon-challenging franchise than just a simple copyright suit.
If Nintendo really does have these patents, they could tackle just about any Pokemon-like on the market, but they just seem to want Sony to back down.

There’s got to be more to it than this. Pocketpair wouldn’t be stupid enough to post all the details of the lawsuit on their website, and Nintendo wouldn’t be petty enough to go claim such a small amount of money in damages.
Will see how this develops.

Nintendo is gonna have to lose on this one or it will affect all of gaming.

This is very speculative, but I get the feeling Nintendo's gotten a little too used to people just rolling over when sued or threatened with suit. They think a patent for riding animals in a video game will hold up?

@FantasiaWHT I know. That patent, in particular, is insane. Have they not heard of riding horses? I'm pretty sure they didn't invent that concept.

If they win on these grounds I'm gonna be really afraid for what is to come for the rest of the gaming space...

True lovers of gaming support Pocketpair, Nintendo are brutes with these lawsuits and need to be shown they can’t bully people into conforming.

@Wordbonder there's plenty of third party creature riding on Switch, from literal horses in Immortals, Assassin's Creed and Red Dead Redemption to more unorthodox fauna in the likes of Rune Factory 5, WoFF and even Monster Hunter Rise. Either something about this patent is misquoted/oversimplified down the info chain or there's something even more fishy going on under the hood. And seeing the whole recent narrative about "a predatory capitalist threat to mon games' creativity" from the company that literally published Yo-kai Watch worldwide, I'm beginning to gravitate towards the latter.🤔😒

@Anti-Matter Palworld's catching mechanic and animation is almost like frame-by-frame a copy of Pokemon.

The thing is, that wasn't necessarly patented until Nintendo basically had that particular mechanics amended after Palworld was released into an already existing patent Nintendo had back in 2021.

It now legally makes that added wording time travel to 2021 and therefore is now patent infringement.

It's legal, but incredibly shady of Nintendo.

It's also incredibly dangerous for the industry because how many "monster catcher" type games exist out there now?! I am sure Nintendo wasn't even the first to introduce riding the monsters you catch, either! Nintendo essentially patented an entire genre.

Heck, even Final Fantasy has had a similar mechanic using Greens to catch Chocobos and then riding them - Nintendo could feasibly never allow that mechanic to exist again due to the way this patent is worded.

Palworld was playing with fire, for sure, but this goes well beyond Palworld. It puts a ton of power in Nintendo's hands - and not the good kind.

@NiallMitch14 the sphere's/pokeballs patent is also pretty silly, it's not a patent of the concept of throwing spheres to capture a creature itself, it's a patent of the act of doing it in a 3D space and in real time.

Y'all keep saying "it will affect all of gaming" yet Nintendo doesn't go after other monster catching games, this argument is so bad faith and just baseless fearmongering.

Now try and think why they're using patents to go after this ONE game all of a sudden? It couldn't be because it's a blatant copy of Pokemon design language to the point where everyone online called it "Pokemon with guns"? Naaaaaaaah, no way!

Think people.

I am going to take this second hand and one sided information and stick it where it belongs.

This makes me think more that it is as I had said, and that is that, to start with, the payments for the "damages" are very low, 33000 would not really hurt Palworld (I speak in the economic sense; and we are talking about Nintendo, whose lawsuits are usually quite costly and financially disastrous for those who lose to them), and about the infringed patent, it is still quite unusual because several games, which are even on the Nintendo console, use those mechanics, so it does not make sense to do something serious.

As I said, the reason why is because of the pressure from the public (especially the Japanese) who do not have a good opinion of Palworld, and in fact, there are YouTube videos where they make that observation, that in Japan, Palworld is popular but in the opposite way...

Some say that it is because of the action of Nintendo going after Sony by making Palworld its rival, however, that sounds somewhat ridiculous if we take into account 2 things past and present: there have already been many rivals of Pokémon, such as Yokai watch that have literally eaten up the Pokémon market in its time of fame and there was no lawsuit; And I doubt there is anything Nintendo vs Sony, if we remember that there is a Zelda movie with Sony's support

I don't know if it's the case but I like to believe that since they can't sue them over the blatant design theft, they choose to do so in another case, which I personally think is fair.

Though I still don't really care who ends up winning this thing because Nintendo still needs that lesson on raising the quality of pokémon games back to where it belongs. And yes I know it's TPC and Game Freak in charge, but Nintendo is a big part of pokémon. I can imagine if they demand better quality, they will have to do as the big N tells them to. But I doubt they will do that anyway because pokémon prints money regardless of quality.

What a literal temper tantrum of a lawsuit from the TPC executives via Nintendo’s legal..

What I know about Nintendo in japan, is that they are incredible patent trolls.

The patents that big game developers file gets insane. And it's shaking the indie scene over there right now since there use to be a gentleman agreement among big studios to leave the little ones alone.

If anyone wants to hear more about this, look for "Overworked Salaryman" on youtube. He's a game developer in japan who regularly talks about the controversial ongoings over in japan gaming industry when he's not being a massive otaku playing kusoge or doing industry logic breakdowns.

In fact, I will even link a video of his here

@Dr_Lugae Zelda BotW already took mechanics from other games before Palworld did, there is nothing inherently wrong about it.

@Itachi2099 I don't agree with you, if they win this then they will go for more. Soon jumping using Tha A button will be next.

Unless there are other patent suits waiting in the wings, $66k is a chump change for a major corporation and might end up being about as much as the legal fees might cost, so just save the time and effort.

@Solomon_Rambling It's not always about th money, Spiderman!

@nhSnork Yeah, I tend to agree.

Go get ‘em Nintendo.

This feels awful similar to the case in the early nineties where Capcom tried to sue data east over fighter’s history infringing on street fighter. Capcom lost.

You can do all the "gameplay elements" in literally 1000s of games. You catch creatures in games like Cassette Beasts, which is just Pokemon in every possible aspect, and there are games where riding on beasts is core to gameplay, like Ark. So what's up?

Well, for what seems like the billionth time ... you can't patent gameplay. What Nintendo is really saying is that the underlying systems (code) used to make these thing possible, and store data about how the creatures act or how their stats are stored, as in the flags for if they are ridable or not, were directly stolen by Polyword. It's also likely they are suggesting the "math" behind the catching of Pokémon based on health is too close to the math they are using. Can't patent that idea, but you sure as heck can patent an equation.

Before reacting to something like this, ask yourself some questions. Are there other games where you toss items to catch thing? Sure, tons. Are there games were you can catch things and ride them? Also a yes. So why is Nintendo not suing them?

That should help you to understand that you, and this small article on a game site with no staff who are legal experts, are missing some key information as to particulars of the case.

And that's fine. This is the exact right amount of information for a update on a game site. The onus is on you to seek out professional consensus before forming a strong opinion and arguing that opinion as if it was fact.

it's also important to note, for the PATENTS ARE EVIL crowd, that based on the total sales and the fact they are are suggesting 3 patents were violated, they are seeking about a penny for every 3,500(ish) games sold, per patent.

That is a completely reasonable licensing fee, not a doomsday device used to hinder innovation.

@Itachi2099 Plus the fact Pocket Pal is known for being a scumbag company…One game by a bad company being taken down isn’t going to affect anything. There’s plenty of monster catching games, this is just the one that screwed up big time.

@NiallMitch14 I suggest reading the patents rather than go by the headline.

whilst "Riding a creature in an environment" would technically be accurate, the patent is not that vague.

It's about mounts having specific functions in specific environments & switching between them seemlessly to navigate spaces(there are lots of other specific ideas & details too)

a lawyer explains Nintendo v. Palworld (Moon Channel)

https://youtu.be/8apzrwv75i0

(how do you embed a youtube video on here?)

@domatron66 @NiallMitch14 I

Just to reenforce this, my friend has a patent for "A way of combining ingredients and subjecting them to heat to create an eatable product"

He doesn't get checks every time someone cooks something. The patent is for a very specific factory lay out and one of the mechanisms used in it.

Patent titles are designed to be searchable. They are extremely general. You have to read the actual patent to know what exactly it covers.

@HeadPirate Once again, you are the voice of reason in this comment section I applaud you. Yea, these patents are completely valid and yeah technically it is legal for Nintendo to do such a thing.

Pocket Pair is an extremely scummy company. But this lawsuit if they loose it won't affect them much at all if the sum Nintendo wants is that low.

Regardless, I find it incredibly weird that patents like that can be sued over just because they're tied to an earlier patent, despite having been filed after Palworld released. I guess it depends on what the parent patent says.

Regardless of what patent they use to go after them, I can't understand how anyone doesn't see that Palworld is a ripoff of the Pokemon franchise.

Like Palworld or not, how can anyone think this wouldn't have ended up in court?

@PharoneTheGnome it was very obvious this was gonna be in court ever since people were tagging Nintendo and TPC on this. And also calling it “Pokemon with guns” doesn’t help at all.

@Arehexes @springer17 Actually a company could go after most fanwork. It just comes down to "is it worth it". Contrary to popular belief Pokemon takes down relatively few fangames. Obviously. There are hundreds of fakemon games and they arent exactly hard to find. Its usually when they do something like add monetization (ads) or get to much online attention (ign, nintendolife) that they get warnings. DidYouKnowGamiing actually had a video about this (less than a week before the first reports of this lawsuit). My favourite example from the video is the fangame that called themselves "Pokemon Smile" and even but the rights to that web domain.... a year before the Pokemon Smile app.

That is way less money than expected. This honestly puts a giant hole on the “Nintendo is being greedy” conspiracy and more “Nintendo just rightfully defending their patents”.

If Palworld devs were smart they would just pay the money, acknowledge the blatantly obvious elephant in the room that lot of stuff in their game wasn’t just simple “inspirations”, and move on.

I don’t see trying to fight this out in court for who knows how long is gonna work out for them especially in the long run against Nintendo that is at this point masters of the craft on dealing with legal. A battle of attrition isn’t gonna work against Nintendo either lol.

Also I can tell a lot of people here in the comment section never touched this particular Pokemon clone when they are using games like World of Final Fantasy as an example. The sheer amount of bad faith comparisons doesn’t help your case one bit.

Sue Microsoft and Blizzard. I’ve been riding mounts since 2004. Ugh…

@Arehexes People are more critical of "rip offs" when money is involved. Even those "passion of love" fangames get bashed if they include ads or some form of monetization.

Personally, Palword just doesn't interest me as a game. I'm not saying it desreves this but I doubt any of us here would talk about it if some of the pals didn't look like pokemon. I see people go "Pokemon wants to suppress Mon games!" that probably don't play mon games. I do not view palworld as some new shining pillar to the genre. That doesn't mean it shouldn't exist though. Basically, to me Palworld is neither the devil nor the people's champion.

@springer17 The authenticity is basically just gain vs loss. For instance, another example brought up by DidYouKnowGaming is Pokemon Uranium. DYKG belives that it was the amount of popularity that fangame got specifically in 2016 that was the problem. Why that year? Pokemon Go came out. And on sites like IGN, Uranium articles were sharing pages with Pokemon Go articles. So the "gain" from taking it down became clear.

I really have to assume Nintendo's the reason Pokemon's in such a sorry state. None of the money is seemingly going back into GameFreak or the IP in general, so what other possibility could it be other than Nintendo's pocketing most of it? And despite Palworld playing more liked Ark but with monsters instead of dinosaurs, the fact that it was white hot popular for a minute and people were comparing it to Pokemon got them scared that their easy money would potentially get threatened to some degree, to the point they had to make up a reason to go after Palworld.

@Itachi2099 because all they care about is the "Nintendo is evilll" bandwagon.

@JohnnyMind agreed on the legal but scummy part, as much as I disdain Pocketpair.

I hope this ridiculous patent fight is over soon, I don't want patent fight for gaming industry, and I want to play this on switch 2.

patent trolling is despicable

@RubyCarbuncle

It almost makes me want to make a "game" with every conceivable mechanic, and patent them so no one else can control gameplay. . .but, I'm waaay too lazy.

@Kiwi_Unlimited
...And it costs money to patent something, and its obviously not cheap. And you might not have the resources to track/monitor people infringing on your patent. And you might not have the money to sue or win in court. And...

Lol at the speculation this could backfire and somehow hurt Nintendo or TPC. Even if they lose every bit of this they wouldn't break a sweat. This is basically a reflexive action by their massive legal arm. The core of Nintendo and Pokemon's audience will never hear or won't care about any of this and will continue to buy everything.

They literally just filed a patent for throwing an object to catch creatures. I hope they never see someone using a bolo or a net.
In all seriousness, these patents do nothing positive for the game industry, and the court should shut this down quickly. If the only infringement Nintendo can accuse palworld of are for a bunch of patents that were conveniently created after Palworld's release, then I don't think they have a case here.

@Tainaru anymore 🥾👅?

@Wilforce it makes absolutely no sense on why they aren't going after sony or MS. Sony has mount riding in horizon and MS has wow and few other games with mount riding. This patent is just horrible

@KayFiOS As explained before, the patents Nintendo is suing is actually legal and valid since 2021. BEFORE Palworld. So they technically DO have a case.

@ELY_M lawsuit is happening in Japan. Last I checked, this ain't happening in the US.

@HeadPirate I would also like to point out that it is mainly the Western audiences that are crying "Nintendo evil and such" but the Japanese public is siding with Nintendo and TPC.

https://www.cbr.com/pokemon-japanese-fans-side-against-palworld/

https://www.cbr.com/palworld-employee-claims-pokemon-design-plagiarism/

Supposedly (not sure if true or not) a former Pocketpair employee stated they did copy designs as well.

@anoyonmus Yet… we need to be vigilant for any patent filings from TPC and Nintendo for throwing balls and riding mounts.

@anoyonmus Even then, we're talking about a mechanic based on the ability to throw an item to catch creatures, something that exists in real life. You can't pretend that these patents aren't bogus.

@KayFiOS I would like you to read HeadPirate's explanation on this matter. I think it is most reasonable explanation I have seen. Its the way it was coded, the animations, etc all that it was on radar. You can't pretend that Nintendo won't sue Palworld at all. It was very obvious they were going to. Like it or not, the patents are legally valid and Nintendo does have a case.

So they want 65k usd...foooooor a sub-patent they filed this year?

Nintendo sucks. Dont defend this bs.

This whole ordeal with this is in effect leaving a nasty taste in my mouth when I say “Nintendo”.

@anoyonmus

I appreciate the shout out. Thank you.

@anoyonmus

Not to go on a rant here ... wait, no, I'm totally going to go on a rant.

The West, and the US specifically, have a unique relationship with capitalism. They have literally killed millions to defend it as an ideal, and hate nothing more then socialism as it's perceived "opposite". Except ... literally every time they witness capitalism working the way it SHOULD, they treat it like the most vial thing they have ever seen.

If you really love capitalism then as the richer company, Nintendo is ethically and morally superior, and they are obligated to crush the "worse" company for the good of everyone. It ensures that capital stays in the most capable hands, which should both lead to more job creation and "trickle down" quality of life to all! You fought wars for this! You just elected the guys who believe in this hook, line and sinker.

On the flip side, any time they see socialism, they eat it up! I saw Fox news, the most right wing private media outlet on the planet, run a "feel good" story about a restaurant owner who forbid tipping, but instead shares the night's profits with his employees. Everyone commented how great it was and how more people should do that.

Hate to tell you but ... that's Marxism. That's just flat out Marxism. You are praising Marxism.

<sigh>

Unite, chains, all that.

@HeadPirate well tbh I like capitalism over socialism/communism. But lets really not go into ideologies here.

@Hal9001

Yeah, i definitely don't have the resources. But it wouldn't be about keeping others from using it, it'd be about keeping others from locking each other out of using these things.

I wouldn't police people over using mechanics. I'd only get involved if someone tried to police someone else.

But, obviously, it's just a dream for multiple realistic reasons.

This is still stupid and frivolous on Nintendo's part but given how little money 10 million yen actually is compared to how successful Palworld is I'd probably just pay it to avoid the court costs.

@ELY_M

Remove copyright laws?

So if I write a book or build a game, you can steal the manuscript or code base and sell it yourself with no repercussions? No thank you. Anarchy might be intriguing for some, but I prefer the world to not plummet into complete chaos with a "survival of the most immoral" mentality.

This is just ridiculous by Nintendo, they think they're some kind of gaming God. If this is why then almost every developer kan get sued. Why not create a lawsuit against Nintendo and pokemon company for using turn based battles and a open world game, the list can go on like this.

If you think this is a scrum attack by Nintendo, you should really consider the wider movements in the market. Palworld are now backed by Sony Music. This suit wouldn't exist if Sony didn't get involved. Simple as that.

@Dr_Lugae after scrolling through comments, most people still forget about that part.

Tells a lot how carefully most people read, saw same issues on other news sites and Reddit too.

@anoyonmus

As long as your opinions are consistent and informed, power to ya.

The problem is never with what people land on, it's with how people end up landing there.

@ZombieTechpad it also wouldn’t have existed if people didn’t call it “Pokemon with guns” and kept tagging Nintendo and TPC on Twitter.

Palworld fans are obnoxious. They never cared about the monster taming genre until somebody added guns and animal abuse. They only like Palworld because it blatantly rips off Pokemon and they see it as them "sticking it" to Nintendo, then have the nerve to act all "how dare you" about the lawsuit. Obnoxious.

@Itachi2099 I'd hardly call it baseless. Yes we all know that Palworld was really asking for it. But Nintendo has a history of constantly tightening their grip when it comes to legal issues.

The simple fact is, they shouldn't have the legal ability to take down other games on these sorts of grounds. Whether or not they ever choose to do so is beside the point. But I certainly wouldn't put it pass them to move on to other monster catching games if they win with this nonsense.

And I say this as someone who isn't even a fan of Palworld.

@Arehexes fan made items is a far stretch from a company made game that is being sold for money. I think you might be using what is called hyperbolic comparison to make an analysis that isn't even close.

@anoyonmus because that's how Sony Music discovered it? Maybe, could have been the gamepass deal as well.