Nintendo lawsuit against Palworld devs concerns Poke Balls

We finally know the patents at the center of a massive Nintendo lawsuit against Palworld maker Pocketpair, and they refer to patents specific to the Pokémon games.

When Nintendo announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair over Palworld — aka “Pokémon with guns” — it did not reveal which patents were allegedly being infringed upon, and Pocketpair said it didn’t know either. However, there were some good educated guesses, like one that pertained to throwing a Poké Ball at a creature in a virtual world.

Pocketpair confirmed in a statement on Friday that there are three patents at the center of the lawsuit. Two are tied to this idea of throwing a Poké Ball and how that works in a video game, and one concerns another mechanic. These patents were all filed in Japan, but correspond to similar patents filed in the U.S. over the past few years.

To sum it all up, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are suing Pocketpair over its system whereby a player throws an object in a virtual game world in a certain direction at a “battle character.” There’s also a patent listed for the technical aspects behind transitioning from riding a board or other object to walking on the ground. This latter one can refer to the bikes in Pokémon games but, as it shows in the patent, it may pertain to riding a Pokémon.

Here are summaries and links to the patents if you’re interested in the full details:

• Patent No. 7545191
  • Determining, in a first mode, an aiming direction in a virtual space based on a second operation input, and causing, in a second mode, a player character to shoot, in the aiming direction, an item that affects a field character placed on a field in the virtual space based on a third operation input. Based on the second operation input, the aiming direction is determined, and based on the third operation input, the player character is caused to shoot the battle character in the aiming direction.
• Patent No. 7493117
  • A sighting direction within a virtual space is determined based on second operation input in a first mode, a player character is allowed to release an item affecting a field character disposed on a field within a virtual space toward the sighting direction on the basis of third operation input, a sighting direction is determined based on second operation input in a second mode, and the play character is allowed to release a fighting character who fights toward the sighting direction on the basis of the third operation input.
• Patent No. 7528390
  • In one example of a game program, a riding object for ground or an aerial riding object is selected by a selection operation, and a player character is made to ride on the selected riding object. In the case that the player character riding on the aerial riding object moves toward the ground, a change is automatically made to a state in which the player character rides on the riding object for ground so that the player character can move on the ground.

Pocketpair also revealed that the injunction calls for 10 million yen: 5 million paid out to Nintendo and 5 million paid out to The Pokémon Company. “We will continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings,” Pocketpair said in a statement.

Despite the lawsuit, Palworld and Pocketpair are still business as usual. Not only has Palworld hit PlayStation 5 (even in Japan, where the case has been filed), but Krafton announced a deal to bring Palworld to mobile.