From the translation of the claims, they appear to describe Pokémon-style activities, with ‘191 focused on the act of throwing a ball at characters in a field, ‘117 tied to aiming, and ‘390 on riding characters.

If this is indeed the case, the lawsuit is clearly illegitimate (in the real sense, can't speak for legal nuances). Not surprising.

[–] simple@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (10 children)

That's not exactly it. I read the description of '191 and it seems to be more like "throwing a ball to capture a character and place it in the player's possession or throwing it to release a captured character". You can see the patent drawings also depecting that, so it's basically a patent of the Pokeball.

Not a lawyer so I have no idea how it'll go in court but it does sound like Palworld infringes on this. It's kinda funny that they could've avoided this by being a bit more legally distinct, like how TemTem throws cards instead of balls.

[–] brlemworld@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The patents were filed after Palworld was released

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago

The one thing about patent law I know is that you can't patent something that already exists in the wild ("prior art"), so surely that can't be the case, and if it is then it's open-and-shut, right?

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