Nintendo Sues Palworld Dev, But Not For The Reason You'd Expect

Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the developer behind Palworld, alleging infringement of patent rights. The studio has since responded, saying the company will take action on this matter to "ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas." Pocketpair called the situation "unfortunate."

According to a press release, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed the lawsuit today, September 18 in the Tokyo District Court. "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," the press release said.

"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."

Responding to the suit, Pocketpair said Nintendo has not told the studio which specific patents are alleged to have been infringed upon. The studio said it's been "blown away" by the reaction to Palworld since it launched, and said it's "unfortunate" that the studio now has to spend time an money on matters "unrelated to game development" as a result of the lawsuit.

"However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas," the studio said.

Tokyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda told Bloomberg, "Nintendo filing this lawsuit for patent infringement, not copyright violation, means it has given up making the case that Palworld's characters are similar to Pokemon's."

Yasuda added: "But it shows Nintendo has more ways to stop games it doesn't like. The company owns a lot of patents related to basic game mechanics that are used in many titles available today."

Back in January, Nintendo said that it intended to investigate Palworld, saying that it would take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on IP rights related to Pokemon. However, in June, Pocketpair said that it still hadn't heard anything from Nintendo or faced any legal action.

That has now changed with Nintendo's lawsuit against Pocketpair. The game has been massively successful, with 12 million copies sold on Steam so far. Pocketpair has plans to continue Palworld, including partnering up with Sony Music Entertainment to expand the Palworld business, as well as potentially adding microtransactions.

Here is Nintendo's statement in full:

"Nintendo Co., Ltd. (HQ: Kyoto, Minami-ku, Japan; Representative Director and President: Shuntaro Furukawa, “Nintendo” hereafter), together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc. (HQ: 2-10-2 Higashigotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, “Defendant” hereafter) on September 18, 2024.

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.

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."

Here is Pocketpair's statement in full:

"Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement. We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement. At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details. 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. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of. 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 game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas. We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused. As always, thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair."