Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the studio who made Palworld, on the basis of patent rights. The developer has responded, saying the company will take action to “ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.” Pocketpair called the situation “unfortunate.”
According to Hideki Yasuda, a Tokyo Securities analyst, “Nintendo filing this lawsuit for patent infringement, not copyright violation, means it has given up making the case that Palworld‘s characters are similar to Pokémon‘s.”
Yasuda added: “But it shows Nintendo has more ways to stop games it doesn’t like. The company owns a lot of patents related to basic game mechanics that are used in many titles available today.”
Nintendo made claims it intended to investigate Palworld back in January to address any potential IP infringement related to Pokémon, but Pocketpair said back in June it hadn’t heard anything.
Read Nintendo’s Statement
“Nintendo Co., Ltd. (HQ: Kyoto, Minami-ku, Japan; Representative Director and President: Shuntaro Furukawa, “Nintendo” hereafter), together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc. (HQ: 2-10-2 Higashigotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, “Defendant” hereafter) on September 18, 2024.
This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.
Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.”
Read Pocketpair’s Statement
“Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement. We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement. At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details. Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo.
Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of. It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit.
However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas. We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused. As always, thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair.”
For those who need tips and tricks on how to get ahead in the game, check out our list of Palworld guides.
Palworld is an action-adventure survival game developed by Pocket Pair and released in 2024 in early access for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One.