To be fair I saw one "Pal" that just straight up used Zoruas model.
Nintendo never cared about stuff like Digimon or Cassette Beasts, so I'm guessing the problem is actual models made by Nintendo were used. Buuuuut this is Nintendo and they sent people cease and desists over Pokemon fan games FFS, so who the hell knows.
I mean, Palwords developers are skeezy, but on the other hand so is Nintendo, also fuck copyright.
i get that they're commonly seen as rivals outside of japan (because saban localised the anime w/ the very intention of challenging pokemon, instead of leveraging the obvious differences), but like, if nintendo had gone after digimon, they'd be going after literally anything featuring monsters. the original 1997 iteration of digital monster was "tamagotchi for boys," which is where battling & evolution comes in
obv the similar names might seem awfully sus, but as i understand, the abbreviating of names like that is fairly common in japan. like, if we knew the franchises as pocket monster & digital monster, there would still be a similarity there, but it would seem less egregious ig.
Honestly Nintendo has had some big wins lately getting people to fold rather than fight in court even when the fight should be winnable. Maybe they're just hoping that happens here too. Get these guys all tied up in court even if Nintendo knows they won't win just to keep the Palworld devs occupied with the court fight rather than making their game
They didn't specify which patents were being infringed upon. It'll be interesting to see how this goes. It's in Japan so I assume Nintendo's got this in the bag
According to a Mastodon post, the speculation is it’s over “patents such as one for throwing and using Poké Balls in a 3D space (JP,2023-092953,A); and one for automatically switching between ride Pokémon as a player transitions between different terrain, such as between air and the ground (JP,2023-092954,A)."
IANAL, certainly not in Japanese patent law, but the first one sounds stronger to me, but still not bulletproof.
The fundamental flaw with patents is being transferrable and the property model of them. Within the context of the current political economy, it would make more sense if someone used another’s patent commercially, the patent holder just gets a tax credit equal to some small percentage of the sales. And sweet Jesus the entire concept of being able to buy and sell patent rights is fucked up.🔝
AFAIK game mechanics in the US can't be patented, especially board games. It's one of the few things American copyright law isn't fucking stupid about.
Which would work out in Pocketpair’s favor; establishing that it was an existing, common mechanic before the patent was filed will typically get it nullified.