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Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair, they announced on Wednesday.
This lawsuit, which was filed in the Tokyo District Court, seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages “on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.”
“Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights, including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years,” it said in a statement.
Released in January via Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, the monster-catching survival game Palworld was an immediate hit, attracting 25 million players in just its first month, according to Pocketpair.
However, the game’s huge success ignited debate around perceived similarities between its character designs and those of the Pokémon games.
Although the gameplay of Palworld is vastly different from Nintendo’s series, debate swelled around the perceived influence its character designs have taken from Pokémon, and whether it could be interpreted as plagiarism.
There were even some accusations that Palworld’s 3D models were nearly identical to those found in Pokémon games, with two experienced AAA game artists telling VGC that, if this was indeed the case, it would likely indicate that Palworld’s character models were based on Pokémon assets.
However, since the lawsuit filed today is a patent suit – and not a copyright suit – it suggests Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s complaint is likely focused on its gameplay inventions, rather than similarities between character designs.
David Hansel, an intellectual property and digital media lawyer at Hansel Henson, told VGC earlier this year that Nintendo would need “a smoking gun” for any copyright case to be successful.
“It’s down to Nintendo to absolutely prove copying, not merely taking influence,” he told VGC. “It’s got to be obvious copying: you look at one picture, and you look at the other alongside it. The industry would’ve come to an end years ago if you weren’t allowed to take influence. You can’t have a monopoly on a certain style of artwork. It literally has to be copying.”
Shortly after Palworld’s release, The Pokémon Company broke its silence on the situation by releasing a statement that it was investigating whether Palworld infringed on its IP rights.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa later commented on the issue during a financial results briefing. While Furukawa didn’t specifically cast aspersions on Palworld itself, he reportedly replied: “We will take appropriate action against those that infringe our intellectual property rights.”
Before The Pokémon Company‘s statement, Palworld’s director (and CEO of developer Pocketpair) Takuro Mizobe responded to the accusations against the game. Speaking to Japanese site Automaton, he claimed that Palworld had cleared legal reviews.
