Nintendo Sues Palworld Developer Over “Multiple” Patent Infringements; Pocketpair Issues Statement

Just a few hours ago Nintendo issued a statement confirming that they are suing Palworld developer Pocketpair Inc. for infringing over “multiple” patents, which really shouldn’t shock that many people given similarities Palworld has with Pokemon.

The filing announcement was made by Representative Director and President: Shuntaro Furukawa.

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.

Now, Pocketpair has issued a statement on the matter as well.

Regarding the Lawsuit

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.

This legal notice comes hot at the heels of what seems to be a PS5 version announcement of Palworld set for Tokyo Game Show this incoming week.

While there’s no doubt that Palworld has similarities to Pokemon, it doesn’t really copy its gameplay, though I can’t say the same for the character designs. We’ll keep our readers updated on the situation as more info surfaces.

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