Mario Bautista
This Pokeball-related patent possibly the reason why Nintendo is suing Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement.
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Nintendo is officially suing Japanese games developer Pocketpair, but it’s not for copyright. Instead, the lawsuit alleges that the Palworld developer has infringed on one of Nintendo’s game patents. While we can’t be 100% certain, it looks like this is the patent in question.
The patent (publication number 20230191255 in the United States) was filed in September 2022 in the U.S., and published in June 2023 in the region. However, the Japanese version of the patent (identification number JP2023-92953 (P2023-92953A)) was published in July. The patent also appears to be closely related to patents filed in 2021 specifically for Pokemon Legends, and a YouTube clip of the patent in action was also attached to the Japanese patent filing.
So…what is the patent exactly? It extends to an storage system and animations related to throwing a Pokeball–or in this case, a ball-like object–at an in-game character in order to capture it. Palworld uses “pal spheres” instead of Pokeballs, but the animations are similar to that of Pokemon; a character will toss the sphere at an enemy, who can then be caught.
The word “catch” appears 182 times in the U.S. version of the patent, outlining various forms and embodiments of how the items are used to secure a “character on the field”.
- FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a non-limiting example of a game image in a first stage of catching of a field character FC,
- FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating a non-limiting example of a game image in a second stage of catching of a field character FC,
- FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a non-limiting example of a game image in a third stage of catching of a field character FC,
The patent explains:
There has conventionally been a game program that allows a player character to catch a character in a virtual space and possess the character.
However, the above game program allows a player character to catch a character only during a fight, and does not allow a player character to catch a character on a field.
With the above in mind, it is an object of the present non-limiting example to provide a game program-storing medium, game system, game apparatus, and game processing method that are capable of allowing a player character to perform a variety of actions on a field in a virtual space.
Pocketpair also outlines this mechanic on their site, including a clip of a character capturing a pal with a pal sphere:
“The process of capturing Pals involves strategically throwing a sphere, with a higher likelihood of success when weakening the target,” Pocketpair writes on the official Palworld website.
What kind of determination that Japanese courts make on Nintendo’s claims remain unknown, and it’s unclear how strong of a case that Nintendo has in this regard.
But as Japanese games analyst Dr. Serkan Toto notes that Nintendo has never lost a lawsuit. The odds of Pocketpair winning aren’t good, Toto believes.
“[They wanted to] make absolutely sure that everything is mapped out, that they have counter-arguments against anything that Pocketpair will say in court, and only if they are able to build a really strong case where they think they are going to win, they will file the lawsuit,” Dr. Toto told GamesRadar+.
“And I think that Nintendo is going into this lawsuit thinking that they’re going to win. And I fear, looking at the track record, it’s highly likely that they win.”
Nintendo hasn’t said much about this lawsuit, but one representative told Game File’s Stephen Totilo that the company has done diligent investigation into their claims.
“We filed the lawsuit at this timing after careful investigation of the content that is the subject of this lawsuit. We will refrain from commenting on topics that relate to the content of the lawsuit.”
Palworld developer Pocketpair has since responded to Nintendo’s lawsuit, alleging that they do not specifically know which patents they are said to have violated.
Meanwhile, Palworld recently launched on Sony’s PlayStation 5 across major worldwide regions, including Japan, where the lawsuit is taking place.
