this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024

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185

Palworld Developer Reveals The Pokémon Patents Nintendo Claims It's Violating (kotaku.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] Bassman1805 147 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 children)

Patent No. 7545191

[Patent application date: July 30, 2024]
[Patent registration date: August 27, 2024]
Relates to a player character throwing an item at a character in the field, which triggers combat.

Patent No. 7493117

[Patent application date: February 26, 2024]
[Patent registration date: May 22, 2024]
Basically an extension of the above, relating to being able to capture Pokémon in the wild rather than just in combat like previous generations.

Patent No. 7528390

[Patent application date: March 5, 2024]
[Patent registration date: July 26, 2024]
Relating to being able to ride creatures in the open world.

Note that every single one of these patents was filed after palworld was released, and they're all awfully vague about what they actually cover.

[–] [email protected] 101 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

How such generic features are even awarded patents is beyond me. None of these are even remotely exclusive to Pokemon or Palworld.

EDIT The grossest thing about this is that these patents were all filed this year, meaning they were filed with the exclusive intention of building a case against Palworld. There really is no level to which Nintendo won't stoop.

[–] Arbiter 25 points 1 month ago

Nintendo will do anything except create a good Pokémon game.

[–] dustyData 66 points 1 month ago (1 children)

By the third patent: Elden Ring, WoW, Everquest, Neverwinter, SW: The Old Republic, Final Fantasy, and many many others have infringed Nintendo patents. Fuck Nintendo.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Depends on the exact wording of the patent, and the jurisdiction (U.S. or Japan)

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nintendo: they violated our patents!

Court: which ones?

Nintendo: (scribbling furiously on paper) these ones!

Checks out.

[–] Sylvartas 54 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

They are all bullshit, but holy fuck, how the hell were they even allowed to register the third one ?

[–] Bassman1805 23 points 1 month ago

It's a little more specific than that, like it has something to do with a way they attempted to streamline the process of switching between mounted and on-foot.

But yeah, still bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Relates to a player character throwing an item at a character in the field, which triggers combat.

Minecraft lets you throw snowballs at monsters.

Relating to being able to ride creatures in the open world.

Time for every game with horses ever to be sued by Nintendo.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Minecraft lets you throw snowballs at monsters.

South Park did it years prior and even had yellow snowballs :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Many RPGs allow you to shoot a bow, or throw a dart, hand axe, rock, and other stuff to initiate combat.

Red Dead Redemption lets you ride horses. So did Ultima, as someone pointed out.

[–] Aeri 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'll take "shit you shouldn't be able to patent" for 1000 alex.

You could argue GTA violates this patent, I throw bullets at dudes and it "triggers combat" \s

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

In Morrowind you can throw knives, darts, and shuriken at passive NPCs and creatures to trigger combat.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

No, the sneaky thing is that they are older patents that were amended/updated after Palworld was released. But the initial patents are older than Palworld.

In a sane world, the case should be decided by the original text of the patents, not the updated one.

What am I saying, in a sane world these patents should not exist.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Software patents usually are shitty like that. And weirdly "state or the art" doesn't seem to apply to them. Their only purpose is trolling your competition and the consumer is left with fewer and poorer choices and higher prices due to royalty costs.

One of the most infamous examples is Microsoft filing a patent for the mouse double click in 2002, getting it granted in 2004 while the thing was actually developed before the 80s (and not by Microsoft, of course).

I question the usefulness for society of patents in general but software patents especially should be abolished.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/11/palworld-dev-details-the-patents-nintendo-and-the-pokemon-company-are-suing-for/

You might look at the dates Pocketpair gave there (which are correct) and think — well, they were filed after, so how can Nintendo sue using those? The answer is complicated. What Pocketpair don't say, is that these patents are from a parent patent[1] which was registered in 2021 and approved in 2023, meaning it very much does end up applying here to Palworld.

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/JP7349486B2/en

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Even if we took all these patents as valid back in 2021, they'd still be fucking stupid

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a game program, a game system, an information processing device, and an information processing method that can smoothly switch between a plurality of boarding objects in a game in which a player character boards an object and moves. [emphasis mine]

Nintendo mentions something from 2017, but I'm pretty sure World of Warcraft did something similar before 2017, possibly other MMOs as well. Reading a bit further, it sounds like automatically changing from an air mount to a ground or water mount without need for input, which Palworld doesn't do. You can glide and "auto dismount" once you hit the ground with certain pals, but that's it, you can't instantly change from a mounted pal to a different pal

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

That last patent is bullshit, are they going to sue every game that has horse mounts? This is from 1981, and has mounts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I'm starting to wonder if Nintendo paid some patent officer off. All of these should have never been approved.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 month ago (3 children)

HOW DID THEY GET THESE PATENTS APPROVED SO FAST????

I have a patent from a previous job. The initial filing was in 2007. It wasn't approved until 2010, almost a year after I had moved on to a different employer.

[–] RightHandOfIkaros 33 points 1 month ago

Money. Bribable law makes anything go faster.

[–] Evotech 8 points 1 month ago

Parents are in Japan.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Your name isn't John Nintendo, that's how.

[–] kokesh 24 points 1 month ago

#1 is doom. You throw a grenade at an IMP on the field and it starts the fight.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (4 children)

game mechanics aren't patentable?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They aren't supposed to be but if you have enough money anything can be patentable, copyrightable, or trademarkable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Some douche had (still has?) all the trademarks on anything Edge related to games

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

No, game mechanics aren’t subject to copyright law. Game mechanics can be patented in the US, so long as they’re unique and nonobvious (to someone with ordinary skill in the field).

Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering both had patents on their mechanics, for example.

And of course, patents in Japan are a completely different animal than patents in the US.

[–] Dagnet 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Load screen minigames was patented for quite a few years, it's the reason we couldn't have fun while waiting for the game to load. The patent has run out tho I think, but nowadays it doesn't matter cause SSDs

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Just wait a few more years and SSDs won't matter, loading screens will take forever again

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

They have been for the longest time, and it's as ridiculous as it sounds.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

They're ridiculous and pathetic. This will only ensure that I'll never buy anything Nintendo, and instead buy Palworld, even if I don't play it immediately.