Nintendo and Pokemon patents

Community General Discussion
21

Alright, here’s the gist of the situation.

Nintendo is suing the developers behind Palworld, the game that has been described as “Pokemon with guns” and have a VERY similar art style to the Pokemon games (the inspiration is quite obvious). Seemingly, the developers were careful enough to get past the legal hurdles of “trademark” and “copyright” by making sure their designs were “legally distinct”.

Patents was pretty much the only thing left for them to pursue legal action… and unfortunately, Nintendo has decided to pursue it for arguably petty reasons. The thing is, most patents are for things like GAME MECHANICS. On example of a patent I’ve seen cited is the “Nemesis System” from the Shadow of Mordor games.

The problem is that this could set a BIG legal precedent with a huge domino effect.

Considering how broadly defined they try to make patents, this could have some serious ramifications for what can be pursued. That being said, if the implementation of a mechanic into a game predates someone else filing it in the patent office (a definite requirement)… it’s probably safe.

There’s also a time-limit on patents, if I’m not mistaken, and it’s the shortest of all the different types IPs. A quick Google search says “20 years from date of filing”, though that’s specific to US law and there could be some variance with other countries. But still, that should help mitigate the issue somewhat.

Now, I’m no legal expert, so take what I’m writing with a healthy amount of skepticism.

But I think this is a case of Nintendo and the Pokemon Company trying to get their “pound of flesh” and protect the IP by whatever legal means they have available to them; no matter how you slice it, Palworld is too close for comfort when it comes to the art style. Unfortunately, the only thing they really have is patents, which is petty and could be cause larger issues with precedence.

The issue being settled out of court is probably the best result that could happen here, making this whole legal action a shot across the bow and hopefully a warning to all to not step on other IPs toes by making them “obviously inspired but legally distinct”.

2 Likes
22

Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were both amazing though.

The Pokemon formula is definitely getting old. Churning out the same game with decade out-of-date graphics and a set of new uninspired mons every few years is not working.

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23

Personally, I didn’t like either of those (absolutely can’t stand the broken weapon system and crafting), but I get why people do.

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24

More like Nintendon’t

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25

i am with you on that find a good weapon breaks in 3 hits
finds a ugly stick breaks in 30 hits lol

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26

I had my fill of Botw when I was in my last of the 4 major dungeons and my weapon broke…and all I had left were crap weapons. Haven’t played it again since and I was right at the end of the game lol

I’ve had more fun with their remakes for Metroid Prime and Mario RPG than most of their new games.

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just think if Botw was on pc also mods would fixed that lol

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28

What makes you think it isn’t, and they don’t?

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mods would fix it by removing the item degradations and i have not seen Botw on steam

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30

Oh, my sweet summer child.

You don’t use conventional methods to play it on PC.
I’m not at liberty to discuss how here, but I can neither confirm nor deny that emulation software may be used to achieve the desired gameplay experience.

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31

i know about emulators but i am not trusting a 3rd party with that kind of power if i install it on my pc
might be limewire 2.0 with some of the sights

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used trusted sources rather than sketchy ones, as with all things on the internet

33

I never really minded the weapon system in Botw and Totk.

At first it can definitely be rough, but once you get more room and better weapons, they can last a while.

Plus, you quite literally find them everywhere, so youre rarely ever out of weapons.

Theres also Bows which are straight up broken in some cases.

Regarding the whole legal mess, Nintendo has no right to patent this, monster collection isnt owned by them, and shouldnt be, if this was about copyright against Palword, then they would have more of a ground to stand on, cause lets be real, Palword pretty much copied a lot of their designs.

And yeah Pokemon is just disappointing at this point, and it has been for years, Gamefreak just doesnt care about the franchise and hardly tries, the closest we got was Arceus, and even that was flawed, their main problem is their obsession of constant releases, giving no room to truly polish the games or make them better overall.

The battle system is boring at this point, the stories are extremely bland, the lack of VA became glaring issue post 3D, and their pokemon designs have gotten worse if you ask me.

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34

I can and the end result of those two monoliths going at each other doesn’t end well for gaming.

35

Japan doesn’t have any fair use laws whatsover. That’s why this lawsuit has to be filed in Japan. It wouldn’t even have a chance of flying anywhere else. So the most this could potentially affect WOW is in Japan.

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what i find funny about the designs
yes lets make a ghost balloon Pokémon that kidnaps kids (this is true look it up)
or an ice-cream pokemon that is like a parasite that needs to be eaten lol

2 Likes
37

Anything which existed before the filing date of the patent would not be affected.

Additionally, if we’re talking about programming, a patent requires specific routes to a particular functionality. So, even if something in an existing program seemingly encroaches upon a new patent filing, as long as that functionality does not utilize the same code to achieve it, then there is no issue.

38

Oh yeah i know about the balloon.

Some pokemons do have pretty messed up backstories lol.

Like that “liveless” bug shell that will supposedly steals your soul if you stare at the hole in its back.

Or how Mimikyu’s true appearance is so horrifying it could kill people.

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39

and the sand castle lol

40

Makers of Dragon Quest should sue pokeon for all it is worth.