Nintendo and The Pokemon Company could be looking to sue Palworld developer Pocketpair outside of Japan, but doing so might not be easy, one attorney has suggested.
As highlighted by patent attorney Kiyoshi Kurihara (via Yahoo Japan, and translated by Automaton), there are four likely patents that Nintendo and The Pokemon Company previously applied for that seem like likely candidates to be brought up in the ongoing patent infringement lawsuit, including one which basically seems to describe Pokeball-style catching mechanics. Specifically, all four of these are divisional patent applications – filed after two previous parent patents dating back to 2021 – but reportedly, Kurihara says that these parents also have divisional patent applications in the US.
Interestingly, it sounds like this could influence whether or not a US-based lawsuit is successful—if one is filed, that is. Kurihara reportedly claims that in the US, software inventions are likely to be classified as 'abstract ideas,' which are considered ineligible for patent. This is quite different in Japan, where rejection for being an 'abstract idea' is apparently rare when it comes to software inventions.
For now, it's all a waiting game, anyway. As far as the ongoing lawsuit in Japan goes, analyst Serkan Toto previously told us that he thinks it's unlikely Nintendo would have filed it at all unless it was confident it would win, and "looking at the track record, it's highly likely that they win." However, it's not clear how long this could even go on for – another IP expert previously suggested that it's "more likely to last five years than to be settled during the first year," so we could be in for a long ride.
