Palworld developer Pocketpair is defending itself against Nintendo and The Pokemon Company’s lawsuit by essentially pointing a finger at other, older games and saying ‘Look, they did it first!’
That’s an oversimplification of the company’s defence as posted on Gamesfray, a site that’s done pretty extensive work looking into legal matters in the games industry and recently broke down Pocketpair’s legal arguments, straight from the Tokyo District Court.
Pocketpair essentially argues that Nintendo’s patents are invalid because other games have used largely similar mechanics months and sometimes years before The Pokemon Company and Nintendo claimed to have invented them, and the Palworld dev even names heavy hitters to prove it, including its own Craftopia.
Defending itself against a patent about capture balls (Poke Balls) to capture/fight, Pocketpair points to Rune Factory 5, Titanfall 2, and Pikmin 3 as examples of games where players can release captured monsters “or a capture item (like a ball)” in any direction. Meanwhile, Octopath Traveller, Final Fantasy 14 and a Dark Souls 3 mod show players the chance of a likely capture when trying to tame a beast.
Pocketpair also apparently used Far Cry 5 and Tomb Raider as games that proved “there can be different types of throwable objects,” according to the report. While games such as The Legend of Zelda, Monster Hunter 4, Path of Exile, and Dragon Quest Builders, as well as mods for Minecraft and Fallout 4, were also namedropped.
For those not in the know, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company launched a lawsuit in Japan against the survival monster-tamer to “seek an injunction against the defendants and compensation for damages,” while the suit itself alleges that Palworld infringes upon “multiple patents.” That was filed in September, 2024, and we’ll just need to wait until we see a resolution one way or the other.
