On December 22, 2017, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Colopl over six counts of patent infringement.
The main talking point in this lawsuit is the use of a joystick-like control scheme known as ぷにコン (Punicon) in the mobile game Shironeko Project. Nintendo argued that the control scheme violated patent #3734820, which was registered back in October 2005 and used in Super Mario 64 DS. The lawsuit ended with a settlement where Colopl agreed to change the control scheme and pay a settlement fee.
What doesn’t get talked about much in the West is that Nintendo made amendments twice in 2016 before filing the lawsuit against Colopl. In other words, Nintendo adjusted the patents to specifically target Punicon to increase their chances of winning.
Nintendo is doing the same thing against Pocket Pair Inc.
To clarify, we do not have confirmation on which patents Nintendo is using against Pocket Pair. Unlike Colopl’s case, neither Nintendo nor Pocket Pair has disclosed the information to the public. What we speculate to be the violated patents are the Pokéball throwing/capturing and Pokémon riding techniques. I will be focusing on these specific patents henceforward.
The patents in question are #7349486 for monster riding and #7398425 for ball throwing/capturing. These patents were applied for back in 2021 and officially registered on September 13, 2023, and December 6, 2023, respectively. Since the launch of Palworld in January, Nintendo has been making adjustments to the patents behind the scenes, presumably to set up the stage for the lawsuit.
The technique Nintendo is using this time is known as a Divisional Patent Application (分割出願). While it’s not the same as an amendment, the intention is the same: to adjust the patent’s context to be more specific against the defendant’s product.
There are three child patents created since the beginning of this year:
7493117 (applied on February 26, registered on May 30)
7505854 (applied on February 6, registered on June 17)
7528390 (applied on March 5, registered on July 26)
This could explain why it took so long for Nintendo to act. Nintendo is waiting for the patents to be approved before pulling the trigger.
Personally I wish they can reach a settlement asap. A prolong battle serve gamer no good. However, seeing Colopl case took 4 years, I'm not optimistic about this.
As a side note, this is business as usual in Japan. KONAMI’s lawsuit against Cygames for patent infringement over Umamusume also took advantage of Divisional Patent Applications, creating 14 child and grandchild patents before launching the attack. You can see the "patent family tree" in the middle of the article.
Other sources:
What Exactly was the Issue in the Lawsuit Between Nintendo and Colopl
This Japanese article talks about the amendments in more details for Nintendo vs. Colopl case
18 Comments
I find it sad. Nintendo doesn’t only want to make more money (obviously) but also protect the E for everyone rating of the Nintendo franchise and of the monster catcher genre by deleting pocket pair
Hoping for a quick settlement does nothing. There is no hope for the “gamers” you so say are affected if nintendo continues to be allowed to push people around by patenting ideas .
Honestly, I think settling outside court is the most reasonable way.
imo, I think even if it has a patent infringement, just patching those things out, won’t have a severe effect on Palworld, since they don’t have the same genre at a core mechanic. But, anyway, Nintendo doesn’t reveal which patents are yet, so let’s see.
The priority date for Nintendo’s patent should be in 2021.
In that case wouldn’t Palworld, in development before that, either outright anticipated Nintendo’s patent or be non-infringing due to prior use?
Otherwise, if the patent applicants are allowed to claim priority for an invention that they neither possess nor disclose, it would show that the patent system in one of the IP5 countries is actually disfunctional.
That “monster riding” patent is insane and Palworld is no where close to the first person to use it. ARK gets mentioned a lot and for good reason since it has all the exact same monster riding mechanics as Palworld does.
Is ARK2 going to have to remove that now? What about the “stasis pod” things they have that let you store monsters? They are vaguely circular, so are they out?
Obviously ARK is also FAR from the first game to use them. You could argue mounts in MMOs like World of Warcraft use those mechanics since they can often be used to glide or swim in/on water too.
The throwing/capturing is at least a bit more specific, but it’s still really stupid. I really wish the people approving these had even the slightest idea what it is they are approving.
Maybe Nintendo will make a proper modern Pokemon title with the settlement winnings. Rejoice gamers 🎉
People mad at an obvious joke lmao 💀
Only a terminal dystopia would allow you to create new patents just for suing people.
Thanks OP for doing the research and brining some information to light concerning this lawsuit.
Me and my mate spent like 3-5 years designing a game, we did all the art & had it pretty much planned out other than how to actually make a game. Then mario sunshine came out & used pretty much every of out art ideas, the way the workd map looked, same basic island shape. We just gave up
Wait. They were allowed to patent riding a horse in games?
We have no idea of the patent which have allegedly been breached.
Anybody claiming anything about what these patents are fucking idiots with ulterior motives.
It’s also pretty telling that PocketPair is claiming that they do not know which patent they suposedly infridged, which is quite literally **impossible**.
So what are they hiding? What do they gain from pretending they are ignorant?
> Nintendo is doing the same thing
> we don’t know what Nintendo is doing
Ok
A quick settlement is still bad for the gamers.
The only good outcome of this would be for Nintendo to be told to fuck off.
1) Patent laws for video games are insanely frustrating.
2) My tinfoil hat is that Pal World’s designs REALLY made Nintendo/TPC twitchy but after the research phase they decided that a patent suit had a better success chance than copyright infringement. They want to slap Pocket Pair and will take whatever means they can get.
3) I feel like pocket pair is kind of doomed here and needs to look for the path of least resistance to end this. Both companies being Japanese, and Nintendo almost certainly having clout there vs an indie studio, is putting them in an extremely disadvantagous position. The fact that N decided to go after PP despite the dozens of other pokeclones out there means they’re likely going for blood.
Nintendo doesn’t have a leg to stand on if this goes to court. Games that released 10+ years prior to the pokemon games used these mechanics, so it’s clear and demonstratable that they didn’t “invent” them.
I hate palworld so I hope it loses, but I hate patenting gameplay so I hope Nintendo loses.
It’s such a predatory and selfish behavior, creativity should never be patented, Nintendo is a cancer.
Fuck Nintendo