It’s all about Pokémon. That little, weird-looking, amazing creature that we die to collect. As it has become viral, Nintendo and the Pokémon Company have dragged Pocket Pairs to court over copyright infringements. Could Palworld possibly win this lawsuit?
Firstly, let’s lay out what the lawsuit is all about. The patent infringement revealed three divisional patents belonging to Nintendo. These are smaller patents that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company registered following Palworld’s Early Access release in January of this year.
Nintendo swiftly moved to fortify their patents by filing these divisional documents against Pocketpair just eighteen days after the game’s debut, on February 6.
According to an article by Automation Media, there is a huge possibility that the underdog could walk away with the trophy this time.
Palworld Set to Win the Nintendo Lawsuit
The news media explained that “Nintendo has a strong case. But at the same time, Ryo Arashida, a representative patent attorney from the Japan-based Patent Attorney Corporation Siarasia is quoted by the Nikkei Business Online Edition as saying that while the outcome of the lawsuit is unclear, there’s a certain game mod out there that could work in Palworld’s favor.”
Explaining that the lawyer did not identify the mod in question, Automation Media pointed out that the characteristics matched one of the Pokémon Go characters.
“The mod in question is a fan-made one, designed to be a crossover between Pokémon and Rockstar Games’s Grand Theft Auto V (GTA5). Arashida does not specify the exact mod, but mentions that it was released publicly around 2016 and includes the mechanic of throwing Poke Ball-like objects at characters on the game field to capture them. Given the description, it is likely that he is referring to this elaborate mod inspired by Niantic’s Pokémon GO from August 2016. ”
Should this mod exist and be accepted by the court, Nintendo would lose one of its patent infringement claims. This would lead to an abrupt dismissal of the suit in favor of Pocket Pair.