Shouldn't it be trivially easy to demonstrate "prior art" in this case, making the patent invalid? I guess that requires someone to get into a legal battle with Nintendo... but it's not like this is some niche mechanic. Surely there are other entertainment megacorps who are currently in violation of this "patent" and do have the resources to fight it in court.
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
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Patent laws in Japan don't work the same way as they do in most of the world. And they can only enforce their patent on companies operating in Japan.
The whole Palworld situation was based on patents that Nintendo only applied for after Palworld was already released.
This patent was granted in the US.
In the US, yes. In Japan, it would appear such a concept does not exist.
They were granted the patent in the US in this case.
Indeed. The sources I've read seem to lay blame with games not usually patenting mechanics (which apparently is all patent officers look at for prior art, not other games), meaning it needs active challenging to be thrown out.
PocketPair is based in Japan, which is where the previous, more directly problematic patents have been filed mid-litigation. While there is clearly prior art for the US patent, it isn't quite as comically broad as the Japan ones, and since Japan doesn't seem to care about prior art, those remain the most concerning to me.
The patent office has long said they're unable to attract and retain the expertise needed to evaluate novelty in any given field, and so the courts are left to sort it out.
I wonder how could a government agency not have the funding it needs? /s
My first instinct is Activision. They got Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Skylanders, and to a lesser extent Sekiro
Yeah, Activision was my first thought as well.
They'll ask Nintendo for use and they'll pay for it
I find it doubtful they'll successfully enforce this in court. But you never know.
The fact that this patent was issued is further proof our "intellectual property" laws and such are fucking broken to all hell, in any case.
Fuck Nintendo, and fuck US copyright
copyright
This isn't a copyright, but rather a patent.
Same shit, different spicing.
Arguably copyright is worse.
People literally die of preventable diseases due to patents. I can't find any news regarding the last time some nutjob died because they couldn't torrent Sham'alyan's Avatar movie.
A fair point but I was meaning from a cultural vandalism angle.
Shouldn't take them long to patent the concept of "game".
They're going for the jugular. They gonna patent electricity
What are we patenting this week Nintendo.
-
Characters throwing ball shaped objects.
-
Characters named after trees.
-
Monsters who only say their own names.
-
Opposite colours, gems, letters or whatever other bullshit we use to name the latest rehashed ~~cashgrab~~ uhh i mean, game...
-
Cute animals.
This list will go on.
This battle system was in use by final fantasy before pokémon though, wasn't it? Also summoning was used in at least the 4 ff games that I have actually played.
They can't copyright the legal system. 🤦♂️
Court summons and legal battles.
I think palworld needs to start filling for ridiculous patents, go on the offensive.
Someone's about to get chocobo-kicked:
FF3 on the NES had summoning too
Onion Knights, assemble!
Final Fantasy VIII, why are you crying?
Macintosh Chess breaks this patent.
God there's so many companies that operate in Japan that will have problems with the summoning one alone. Square soft leaps to mind
This is a US patent; not directly relevant to Japanese operations.
Pretty sure Square soft operates in the United States as well.