Patent analyst Florian Mueller has written an in-depth analysis of the lawsuit Nintendo and The Pokemon Company has hit indie developer Pocketpair with. The two companies are seeking an injunction to halt Palworld sales in Japan and is looking to claim $65,600 in royalties, plus late payment damages. Mueller says that the whole case is a "clear case of bullying" and "Nintendo wants to wage patent lawfare over game rules." You can read his full thoughts here.
"First, it is a clear case of bullying. Nintendo is a far older and larger company than Pocketpair with extensive experience in patent prosecution and patent infringement litigation. What Nintendo originally insinuated in a public statement (January 25, 2024 games fray article) was that Pokémon-specific intellectual property rights or "assets" (such as graphics) were used in the making of Palworld. It would obviously be unlawful to attach the Pokémon label to a third-party game, or to import Pokémon characters into another game, without permission.
Back in January when Nintendo issued the statement, it apparently had nothing specific in its intellectual property portfolio to underpin its suggestion of infringing acts on Pocketpair's part.
All that Nintendo has done in the meantime is
- to file new patent applications (in February, March and July of this year) building on older patent filings from 2021 and
- to assert those game rule patents in Japanese court.
But Nintendo has not made any argument under trademark law ("Nintendo" and "Pokémon" obviously being among the gaming industry's most valuable trademark rights). identified a single patent that existed at the time of Palworld's release (or Nintendo's statement) and was allegedly infringed, shown an infringement of any other type of intellectual property right, such as copyright (in images) or design rights or "made any argument under trademark law ("Nintendo" and "Pokémon" obviously being among the gaming industry's most valuable trademark rights).
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