Thoughts on Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld devs?

[crantheman]

Nintendo/Pokemon Company recently submitted a lawsuit against Palworld's devs claiming that they infringed on their patents.

Personally, I'm curious which patents Nintendo thinks the Palworld devs infringed upon. What are y'alls thoughts on this?

 

[GlitchyPSI]

software patents even if it's against a company i hate are the blight upon innovation
atari had the atrocious minigames-in-loading-screens patent that harmed a good chunk of the industry's possibility to work on it and by the time it expired it was no longer relevant to games as they loaded very quickly already

 

[crantheman]

software patents even if it's against a company i hate are the blight upon innovation
atari had the atrocious minigames-in-loading-screens patent that harmed a good chunk of the industry's possibility to work on it and by the time it expired it was no longer relevant to games as they loaded very quickly already

The first point you bring up reminds me of a sentiment John Carmack stated in the Masters of Doom book. In it, he stated that patents on video game assets/software only holds back creativity in video games and will hold back progress of the industry as a whole.

 

[Andrew]

Personally, I'm curious which patents Nintendo thinks the Palworld devs infringed upon

You’ve hit the nail on the head here. Were this a standard copyright case I would understand it- if you’re going for patent infringement specifically that more than likely means they expected to lose a copyright case IMO but I also know nothing about Japanese legal so I might be entirely off base with this line of thinking. Some form of litigation was inevitable (especially after the Sony deal) but I cannot imagine what they’re angling at here. Maybe gameplay mechanics? In which case, we all lose if Nintendo wins.

 

[crantheman]

You’ve hit the nail on the head here. Were this a standard copyright case I would understand it- if you’re going for patent infringement specifically that more than likely means they expected to lose a copyright case IMO but I also know nothing about Japanese legal so I might be entirely off base with this line of thinking. Some form of litigation was inevitable (especially after the Sony deal) but I cannot imagine what they’re angling at here. Maybe gameplay mechanics? In which case, we all lose if Nintendo wins.

My theory is that Nintendo thinks Palworld infringed upon a few designs of Pokemon (ex. Palworld has monsters that look too similar to Pokemon such as Luxray and Lucario). In that scenario I can understand Nintendo taking legal action.

 

[Andrew]

100% the origins of the case and they would have an uncertain victory if they went to court over that, under US law it would be easy to claim parody & maybe beat Ninty in the case. Again tho, don’t know Japanese law at all… but what is especially interesting to me is this IGN article re: the patent angle

Nintendo vs. Palworld: 'Killer Patent' May Be About the Mechanic of Catching Pokémon - IGN

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.

www.ign.com

 

[Term]

We will be following closely. I think it's obvious that many of the character designs don't pass the smell test so if they're going for a patent lawsuit instead they must feel like they have a stronger angle there, somehow. This in spite of there already being many other creature collecting games on the market that haven't drawn their ire.

Very very interested to see what the strategy is here. I just wish doing the research on it didn't require reading textbooks worth of the most horrific legalese jargon ever written lol

 

[Super Crab Deluxe Turbo X]

My theory is that Nintendo thinks Palworld infringed upon a few designs of Pokemon (ex. Palworld has monsters that look too similar to Pokemon such as Luxray and Lucario). In that scenario I can understand Nintendo taking legal action.

nah it's a patent thing, Pokémon designs being "copied" would be a copyright thing

if it was a copyright thing it'd probably be thrown out really easily (in the US at least, idk about Japan). Capcom tried suing Data East over a Street Fighter clone and lost, even though design documents for it literally mentioned copying Street Fighter lmao. if Nintendo went "this character is just like Lucario", the judge would probably go "yeah and Lucario is just Anubis, come on" for example

so that's why they're going for patent shit instead of copyright. you can literally say "we are copying Street Fighter" in your design documents and win

 

[Send]

From what I've heard it seems that the patent is one on throwing balls at monsters/those balls being thrown at objects/bosses for the monsters to do actions. It's a super ridiculous thing to have patented

 

[spc_daicon]

Nintendo lawyers are at it gain.
I love them as game devs but I hate them as a company with a passion.

Really curious on how this will turn out but I lack the knowledge to really comment on the matter. Time will tell

 

[Send]

Nintendo lawyers are at it gain.
I love them as game devs but I hate them as a company with a passion.

Really curious on how this will turn out but I lack the knowledge to really comment on the matter. Time will tell

Sadly it's being done in Japanese court, and since Nintendo is as big as they are, that means its most likely that they'll win

 

[ball]

the relevant patents are very recent in origin (ctrl+f "The Pokémon Company") and seem to relate to mechanics in pokemon legends: arceus, which came out in 2022
it should be noted these patents were filed while palworld was already in development and published only a few months before palworld launched
makes me wonder if nintendo was being proactively aggressive here or they just lucked out that one of their useless patents had legs

 

[Send]

the relevant patents are very recent in origin (ctrl+f "The Pokémon Company") and seem to relate to mechanics in pokemon legends: arceus, which came out in 2022
it should be noted these patents were filed while palworld was already in development and published only a few months before palworld launched
makes me wonder if nintendo was being proactively aggressive here or they just lucked out that one of their useless patents had legs

With how petty nintendo can be at times i really think they just lucked out and originally didn't expect the patent to do much of anything

 

[Andrew]

makes me wonder if nintendo was being proactively aggressive

Feel like this had to be the case. It raises the question “why wouldn’t they do this beforehand?” otherwise imo

 

[ball]

Feel like this had to be the case. It raises the question “why wouldn’t they do this beforehand?” otherwise imo

the popular assumption seems to be that they're suing over violations of patented legends: arceus mechanics, not the general pokeball concept (though that could be part of it)

 

[bennydryl]

they waited until hype died down on Palworld to try to avoid bad pr
which tells me all i need to know about their intentions

 

[Term]

I don't buy that. legal shit always moves at a glacial pace && obviously bad pr was unavoidable to begin with because we're here talking about it now lol

 

[bennydryl]

that's true...
i shouldn't try to imagine what Nintendo is thinking because they do things i dont understand all the time