Nintendo and the Pokémon Company have filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the Tokyo-based indie game studio behind the hit survival game Palworld, over allegations of patent infringement.
In a statement released on Wednesday on the Nintendo website, the company said that “This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.”, and that the lawsuit was filed the same day in the Tokyo District Court.
“Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years,” it said.
“In order to protect the valuable intellectual property that we have built up through many years of hard work, we will continue to take the necessary measures against any infringement of our intellectual property, including our brand.”
Nintendo did not go into any further details about the lawsuit.
Palworld, affectionately referred to as “Pokémon with guns”, was released by Pocketpair in January, selling over 5 million copies in its first three days of release, as mentioned by the BBC. A month into its release, the game had amassed a player-base of 25 million people.
Palword‘s influences draw not just from Pokémon, but other video games, such as other base-building survival games like Minecraft. Players, or “pal-tamers”, battle other humans and creatures known as “pals” which can be captured and recruited by players. Once tamed, “pals” can fight alongside players, or be put to work at a base by crafting items and supplies.
Pocketpair account responded to the lawsuit on Thursday, on the official Palworld X/Twitter account. In the statement, they said that would be proceeding “the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.”.
According to Pocketpair, they are currently unaware and uninformed of the specific patents they were accused of infringing upon.
“Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world.”
“It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie games develop.”
As mentioned by Digital Trends, The Pokémon Company previously stated in January that it would investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon, after fans pointed out similarities between the two games. In the statement, Nintendo doesn’t explicitly refer to Palworld by name, but as “another company’s game released in January 2024”
After the announcement, netizens have begun looking into Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s patents. In a Twitter thread, Game File reporter Stephen Totilo spotted a U.S. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company patent from 2021, “for a video game character throwing an item to catch a monster while out in the field”. After further digging, Totilo found out that a similar patent, filed in 2023, is valid in Japan.
According to GameRant, a patent infringement lawsuit wasn’t expected to take place, due to the fact that patent verdicts in Japan usually take between one and two years to reach a first-instance verdict and can run for much longer depending on court schedule.
As mentioned by Game Developer, Nintendo’s litigious behavior is nothing new. The corporation has gone after everyone ranging from Blockbuster in the 90s over a supposed bid to stop the game rental business, to fan game creators.
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