Nintendo and The Pokémon Company jointly file lawsuit for Patent infringement against Palworld creator Pocketpair, Inc in the Tokyo District Court

A news release issued by Nintendo Co., Ltd. and The Pokémon Company on Thursday September 19th (JST) has named Pocketpair, Inc. as the defendant in a patent infringement lawsuit filed in the Tokyo District Court. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are seeking an injunction against the company for "infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights."

The specific patents in question were not disclosed in the news release. Based on searching of Japanese patent databases, initial speculation is that these may include (but is not necessarily limited to) patents relating to game mechanics and gameplay features from Pokémon: Legends Arceus, and may include patents such as one for throwing and using Poké Balls in a 3D space (JP,2023-092953,A); and one for automatically switching between ride Pokémon as a player transitions between different terrain, such as between air and the ground (JP,2023-092954,A).

Palworld is an open-world survival and monster-training game that released in early access on January 18th, 2024. It quickly rose to become one of the fastest selling PC games of all time, selling 8 million units and having over 2 million concurrant players on Steam during its first week. Shortly after, it garnered controversy for how a significant number of its Pals (monsters) beared an uncanny resemblance to Pokemon, with accusations of plagiarism and the use of AI. Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe responded by stating that the designs were made by a single graduate student, and that they had no intention of infringing on any copyrights. After a number of complaints, Nintendo addressed this indirectly on January 24th, stating that they were looking into the matter.

Pocketpair's Craftopia, which is currently available in early access, has attracted similar criticism to Palworld, with the game's promotional videos explicitly and blatantly evoking scenes and gameplay mechanics from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.