Patent analyst Florian Mueller has written a detailed analysis of the lawsuit Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have slapped against indie developer Pocketpair. The two companies are seeking an injunction to stop sales of Palworld in Japan and are seeking $65,600 in royalties, plus late payment damages. Mueller says the whole case is “a clear case of bullying” and that “Nintendo wants to run patent law instead of game rules.” You can read his full thoughts here.
“First, it is a clear case of bullying. Nintendo is a much older and larger company than Pocketpair with extensive experience in patent prosecution and patent infringement litigation. Which Nintendo originally insinuated in a public statement (Gaming article dated January 25, 2024) is that intellectual property rights or “assets” (such as graphics) specific to Pokémon were used in the creation of Palworld. It would obviously be illegal to put a Pokémon tag on a third-party game, or import Pokémon characters into another game, without permission.
Back in January, when Nintendo issued a statement, it apparently did nothing concrete in its intellectual property portfolio to support its suggestion of copyright infringement by Pocketpair.
Everything Nintendo has done in the meantime is
- submit new patent applications (in February, March and July this year) based on older patent applications from 2021 and
- confirm those game rules patents in a Japanese court.
But Nintendo made no argument under trademark law (“Nintendo” and “Pokémon” are apparently among the most valuable trademark rights in the gaming industry). identified one patent in existence at the time of Palworld’s announcement (or Nintendo’s statement) that was allegedly infringed, demonstrated infringement of any other type of intellectual property right, such as copyright (in images) or design rights, or “made any argument under trademark law (“Nintendo” and “Pokémon” are apparently among the gaming industry’s most valuable trademark rights).
