Pocketpair goes on to say that Palworld has been claimed to infringe on three patents held by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company and that part of the damage is required as compensation.

The first patent is one that most had guessed to be part of the case, as 7545191 refers to the process of capturing and befriending Pokemon, which Palworld apes with its Pal Spheres. The other two patents that are included in the lawsuit, 7493117 and 7528390 haven’t been found and detailed just yet, but they’re likely also mechanics in Pokemon games that are replicated in Palworld.

  • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    The most disgusting part of this is that all of these patents were filed this year, meaning their only purpose is for giving Nintendo an avenue to sue Pocket Pair.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Wouldn’t that make them super easy to knock down though? Pal World can just open it’s records to show Nintendo’s process wasn’t novel.

  • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Nintendo is going hard against palworld because palworld is funded by Sony this is just the next move in a 30 year chess match

    • CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Yeah, there was a great video on YouTube I saw a few days ago that went over why Sony is backing Pocket Pair, why Nintendo is making this case about patents, why that’s a massive risk for Nintendo, and why Nintendo is willing to take that risk.

      It largely seemed to come down to the Nintndo-Sony rivalry that started when Nintendo backed out of the SNES era deal to create the PlayStation. Nintendo is trying to crush Sony’s potentially viable competitor to their largest franchise and are making the case a patent case because that’s the only route they can pursue. If they lose, Nintendo stands to lose those patents.

      The video in question

  • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Saw videos/articles online that this was the “end of gamedev” or whatever.

    While patents for games are shit, theyve been around a long time and are hard to enforce. Palworld made it incredibly easy for one of the most ruthless companies to go after them. I expected they waited to see the final game before taking action, and until palworld made a ridiculous amount of money.

    I’ve worked on Pokemon clones that are commercially available, and while they didn’t sell as much as palworld, they took a bit more care designing around stuff

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      How tf does Coromon get away with it? I’d say that’s waaaay more of a rip-off than Palworld. E: typo

      • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Funny you mention THAT game.

        Not that I have anyyy insider knowledge, but great care was taken to avoid very specific things. Also who knows, had coromon exploded in popularity, maybe Nintendo would have bothered.

      • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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        15 days ago

        Coromon didn’t get a huge media deal that could have the potential undermine the Pokemon franchise. Nintendo going after them would be just needless friction since patent lawsuits are hellish

        • Omega@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          What I always hear is that companies will send C&D letters to small ventures, because it creates precedence. Without that, a company loses the right to sue.

          I wonder how true that actually is.

        • Grimy@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          I also think location has to do with it. The dev team behind Coromon are in Europe while both Nintendo and the Palworld devs are in Japan.

          From what I understand from a previous article, japanese patent laws can be quite strict.