Nintendo Argues Mods Do Not Count As Prior Art And Shouldn’t Be Used To Upend ‘Pokémon’ Patent Infringement Claims Against ‘Palworld’
In the ongoing Pokémon patent infringement case against Pocketpair in Japan, Nintendo is attempting to dictate what the Palworld developer can use in its defense — arguing that the mods Pocketpair cites as evidence, regarding the patented game mechanics others created before Nintendo, shouldn’t be considered.
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Games Fray‘s intellectual property analyst, Florian Mueller, reports Nintendo is claiming that game mods that did game mechanics before Nintendo patented them shouldn’t be used in their case against Pocketpair and Palworld. This was via a Japanese local who examined the case files on their behalf.
Pocketpair’s legal defense is twofold; claiming they never infringed on the three Nintendo patents that apply to recent action-oriented entries in the Pokémon series, and contesting the patents aren’t valid. The latter involves arguing that there exists “prior art” and that someone came up with those idea before Nintendo (if it was “obvious” to do so, then it shouldn’t have been granted a patent anyhow).
The list of alleged prior art also included several mods inspired by mechanics from Pokémon (and in some cases implementing the characters); Dark Souls 3, ARK: Survival Evolved, Minecraft, and Fallout 4. Combined, these feature and pre-date almost all of Nintendo’s trio of patents they claim Pocketpair infringed.
These were throwing items to catch creatures (showing a chance of success), throwing out a creature to fight for the player, and smoothly switching between different kinds of “mount” depending on the terrain. These mechanics can be seen in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and bar mounts appear to return in Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
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Nintendo reportedly argued in two different pleadings that mods require other games to function, and therefore shouldn’t be considered prior art. Mueller notes, as he did on sister site IP Fray, that “Courts and patent offices the world over tend to define the scope of eligible prior art rather broadly.”
Likewise, Mueller points out that courts “usually” won’t tolerate “unreasonable” attempts to reject prior art evidence.
Further, there is the risk of setting a precedent if the Japanese courts agree with Nintendo; granting no protection to those who create mods if companies or anyone patents what modders have created. This is on top of Nintendo effectively asking the courts to accept their broad patents, which Mueller warns only opens them up to more chance of making the patent invalid.
Speaking to IGN, business lawyer Richard Hoeg argued, “Patents are a special monopoly granted by the governments of the world to encourage creative invention. If something already exists in the world, some new person is not allowed to claim they invented it and get that protection.”
“We call everything that already exists ‘prior art,’ and it would be ludicrous to exempt any piece of game design from that category simply because of how it’s stood up in the software,” Hoeg defends. “The mechanism for access shouldn’t really matter. It exists. It makes things like it in the world non-novel and thus not subject to protection.”
“We don’t give out monopolies to second place.”
It should be noted games born from mods include DOTA 2, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Killing Floor, Vintage Story, Black Mesa, The Stanley Parable, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, DayZ, No More Room in Hell, Dear Esther, The Forgotten City, and more. Though, these became their own stand-alone releases.
Nintendo is also reportedly seeking an injunction to prevent Palworld from infringing on them in the future, while Pocketpair argues such an injunction shouldn’t affect lawful versions of the game. Pocketpair have already updated the game to remove the allegedly patented mechanics, despite Nintendo making their patents wider and wider.
The litigation is also unlikely to start this year, party due to amendments Nintendo is making to their patents.
In earlier news, Nintendo managed to obtain a US patent for summoning a character to fight on your behalf in a video game. While there are details, the patent is wide enough to affect many games, including Palworld.
Legal experts in prior reports theorize that Nintendo is aiming to repeat their Japanese patent infringement case in the US, hindering Palworld in the lucrative US market.
