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About a year ago, the Nintendo-owned Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement – and since then, things have only become more complicated as the multinational firm continues to bag new patents.
Nintendo obtained yet another just last week, it seems, as reported by Games Fray – and one yesterday. The new US patents include one related to a "smooth switching of riding objects" mechanism, and another that's far more concerning, as it could change the way that non-Pokemon creature collectors work forever: a patent covering the summoning of a "character" (in Palworld's case, that would be a Pal) and using it in combat against others.
That's pretty much the core of every genre entry, from Pokemon itself to newer games like Palworld, Moonstone Island, and smash-hit indie gem Casette Beasts. You collect creatures and then, you know, use them in battle.
Here's how the patent, which the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Nintendo as "US Patent No. 12,403,397," outlines what it covers, starting with a console or PC and a game on any storage device (e.g., a drive).
If a situation includes those two things, a character that can move within a virtual "field" (space), a summonable "sub character" (think Pokemon or Pal), and an enemy character that's present within the area that the so-called "sub character" is summoned into to fight – that scenario could now effectively be Nintendo-exclusive. The patent apparently applies even if there is no enemy character to battle immediately, further complicating the patent.
It's difficult to follow, but it basically boils down to Nintendo now owning the gimmick of creature summoning in combat (at least within the realm of how it functions within creature collectors, that is). It's unclear how this will affect Palworld – after all, this isn't the first time Nintendo has bagged a new patent mid-lawsuit – but Pocketpair has previously had to make "certain compromises" amid the legal battle to "avoid disruptions" in development.
Just a couple of months ago, Nintendo also updated the wording of one of the patents central to the lawsuit – one related to the riding or mounting tech in games like Pokemon. It's hard to tell what the future holds now, but here's hoping the creature collector genre lives on.
