Nintendo's patent lawsuit shows it's "given up making the case that Palworld's characters are similar to Pokemon's," analyst explains

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Nintendo said it was looking into copyright infringement months ago, but must have come up empty-handed

Palworld Anubis breeding
(Image credit: Pocketpair, Inc.)

Nintendo and the Pokemon Company's lawsuit against fellow creature-collectathon Palworld is for patent infringement, rather than copyright infringement, and one analyst reckons that means Nintendo has "given up" on trying to argue that Pals look too similar to Mons. 

Nintendo announced that it was filing a lawsuit against developer Pocketpair earlier this week for infringing "multiple patent rights" in order to "protect the valuable intellectual property that we have built up through many years of hard work." Nintendo had previously said it was looking into potential cases of copyright infringement, right around the time when Palworld became a booming success, so most people speculated that if a legal battle between the two monster-tamers were to start, it would be centered around the creature design's visual similarities. But it seems Nintendo must have come up empty-handed in that regard.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda explains that since the lawsuit is purely to do with patent rights, the Big N isn't going to bother arguing that Anubis looks too much like Lucario, for example.

"Nintendo filing this lawsuit for patent infringement, not copyright infringement, means it has given up making the case that Palworld's characters are similar to Pokemon's," Yasuda says. "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 today." 

I won't pretend to be a legal expert, but from what I understand, patents normally protect someone's 'inventions,' like software or machinery, while copyrights usually protect someone's work, like books, music, and art. Details about the case are still under wraps, so no one really knows what Nintendo will argue. Maybe they'll say the Pal-catching balls are too alike to Poke Balls, or maybe they have beef with something as simple as UI prompts. It could be anything, but we won't find out for a while.

“I think this will end bad for Pocketpair”: Analyst says Nintendo’s “feared” legal team wouldn’t sue Palworld unless it was confident of victory.  

Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.