Pocketpair goes on to say that Palworld has been claimed to infringe on three patents held by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company and that part of the damage is required as compensation.

The first patent is one that most had guessed to be part of the case, as 7545191 refers to the process of capturing and befriending Pokemon, which Palworld apes with its Pal Spheres. The other two patents that are included in the lawsuit, 7493117 and 7528390 haven't been found and detailed just yet, but they're likely also mechanics in Pokemon games that are replicated in Palworld.

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[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

Saw videos/articles online that this was the "end of gamedev" or whatever.

While patents for games are shit, theyve been around a long time and are hard to enforce. Palworld made it incredibly easy for one of the most ruthless companies to go after them. I expected they waited to see the final game before taking action, and until palworld made a ridiculous amount of money.

I've worked on Pokemon clones that are commercially available, and while they didn't sell as much as palworld, they took a bit more care designing around stuff

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

How tf does Coromon get away with it? I'd say that's waaaay more of a rip-off than Palworld. E: typo

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Coromon didn't get a huge media deal that could have the potential undermine the Pokemon franchise. Nintendo going after them would be just needless friction since patent lawsuits are hellish

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I also think location has to do with it. The dev team behind Coromon are in Europe while both Nintendo and the Palworld devs are in Japan.

From what I understand from a previous article, japanese patent laws can be quite strict.

[–] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What I always hear is that companies will send C&D letters to small ventures, because it creates precedence. Without that, a company loses the right to sue.

I wonder how true that actually is.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

That's more trademark law, not patent or copyright. At least in the US, I don't know if Japan is different.

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