SoylentNews

Freeman [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/09/nintendo-the-pokemon-company-sue-palworld-maker-pocketpair/ [arstechnica.com]

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced [nintendo.co.jp] they have filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair, the makers of the heavily Pokémon-inspired Palworld. The Tokyo District Court lawsuit seeks an injunction and damages "on the grounds that Palworld infringes multiple patent rights," according to the announcement.
[...]
The many surface similarities between Pokémon and Palworld are readily apparent, even though Pocketpair's game adds many new features over Nintendo's (such as, uh, guns). But making legal hay over even heavy common ground between games can be an uphill battle [arstechnica.com]. That's because copyright law (at least in the US) generally doesn't apply to a game's mere design elements [arstechnica.com], and only extends to "expressive elements" such as art, character design, and music.

Generally, even blatant rip-offs of successful games [arstechnica.com] are able to make just enough changes to those "expressive" portions to avoid any legal trouble. But Palworld might clear the high legal bar for infringement if the game's 3D character models were indeed lifted almost wholesale from actual Pokémon game files, as some observers [videogameschronicle.com] have been alleging since January.
[...]
"Palworld is such a different type of game from Pokémon, it’s hard to imagine what patents (*not* copyrights) might have been even plausibly infringed," game industry attorney Richard Hoeg posted on social media [x.com] Wednesday night. "Initial gut reaction is Nintendo may be reaching."

PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe told Automaton Media [automaton-media.com] in January that the game had "cleared legal reviews" and that "we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies."
[...]
Update (Sept. 19, 2024): In a statement posted overnight [pocketpair.jp], Pocketpair said it was currently "unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and have not been notified of such details.
[...]
Pocketpair promises that it "will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of."

Original Submission