Nintendo has more than Palworld to deal with – IP expert says Genshin Impact dev's new Pokemon-style game "clearly infringes" on a hard-to-avoid patent Pocketpair is accused of infringing

Key art for Honkai: Nexus Anima shows a dog-like creature running from a cat-like creature, with a female character stood in the background. — (Image credit: Hoyoverse)

Hoyoverse, the gacha game pioneer behind Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, is back with an all-new creature-taming romp called Honkai: Nexus Anima. Its first gameplay trailer might look like a tasteful reheating of Pokemon's nachos, but one IP expert claims it already "clearly infringes" upon a patent Nintendo is using in its lawsuit against Palworld.

The four-minute gameplay tease shows off Honkai: Nexus Anima's lush exploration, creature-controlled mini-games, top-down battling, and fancy customization options. What might potentially put it in Nintendo legal's line of fire is a brief look at how its mounts work, though.

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Nintendo's 'mounting-of-flying objects' patent initially focused on the player's ability to "smoothly" transition between different mounts on the fly, but the publisher soon amended it in the middle of its Pocketpair case to include any instance in which a player summons, mounts, then rides on a flying creature.

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The change forced Pocketpair to remove gliding pals from Palworld in exchange for a glider item since, you know, they're currently embroiled in a lawsuit filed by Nintendo and the Pokemon Company over alleged patent infringement.

This is the same patent that might just give Honkai: Nexus Anima some trouble, according to IP consultant Florian Mueller, who's been covering the lawsuit in extensive detail over on Games Fray. Mueller reckons the clip of Nexus Anima's mounts "clearly infringes the amended version of Nintendo's smooth-switching-of-riding objects patent."

Still, there's no guarantee Nintendo will take legal action against Hoyoverse. The arguably overreaching patent covers a lot of ground and there are plenty of games that also infringe upon it which have been left untouched. Mueller claims: "It is so basic that it cannot be right to prohibit all other game makers from implementing it."

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