This battle system was in use by final fantasy before pokémon though, wasn't it? Also summoning was used in at least the 4 ff games that I have actually played.
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
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Megaten games are older than that. You even "capture" the demons you're battling
Shouldn't it be trivially easy to demonstrate "prior art" in this case, making the patent invalid? I guess that requires someone to get into a legal battle with Nintendo... but it's not like this is some niche mechanic. Surely there are other entertainment megacorps who are currently in violation of this "patent" and do have the resources to fight it in court.
Patent laws in Japan don't work the same way as they do in most of the world. And they can only enforce their patent on companies operating in Japan.
The whole Palworld situation was based on patents that Nintendo only applied for after Palworld was already released.
This patent was granted in the US.
In the US, yes. In Japan, it would appear such a concept does not exist.
They were granted the patent in the US in this case.
Indeed. The sources I've read seem to lay blame with games not usually patenting mechanics (which apparently is all patent officers look at for prior art, not other games), meaning it needs active challenging to be thrown out.
PocketPair is based in Japan, which is where the previous, more directly problematic patents have been filed mid-litigation. While there is clearly prior art for the US patent, it isn't quite as comically broad as the Japan ones, and since Japan doesn't seem to care about prior art, those remain the most concerning to me.
The patent office has long said they're unable to attract and retain the expertise needed to evaluate novelty in any given field, and so the courts are left to sort it out.
I wonder how could a government agency not have the funding it needs? /s
My first instinct is Activision. They got Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Skylanders, and to a lesser extent Sekiro
Yeah, Activision was my first thought as well.
They'll ask Nintendo for use and they'll pay for it
Shouldn't take them long to patent the concept of "game".
They're going for the jugular. They gonna patent electricity
What are we patenting this week Nintendo.
-
Characters throwing ball shaped objects.
-
Characters named after trees.
-
Monsters who only say their own names.
-
Opposite colours, gems, letters or whatever other bullshit we use to name the latest rehashed ~~cashgrab~~ uhh i mean, game...
-
Cute animals.
This list will go on.
I think palworld needs to start filling for ridiculous patents, go on the offensive.
I find it doubtful they'll successfully enforce this in court. But you never know.
The fact that this patent was issued is further proof our "intellectual property" laws and such are fucking broken to all hell, in any case.
Fuck Nintendo, and fuck US copyright
Like the other guy said it's a patient. I don't know why these days it seems like the patent office is allowing patents for vague concepts, But it needs to stop. The entirety of the video game industry is built on itineration of ideas and concepts that came before. How much longer before they try to patent jumping?
I thought you had to prove it was unique concept before patenting something, anyway. These have obvious examples from other places
Give them enough rope, and they'll try to patent opening a menu or pausing the game..
copyright
This isn't a copyright, but rather a patent.
Same shit, different spicing.
Arguably copyright is worse.
People literally die of preventable diseases due to patents. I can't find any news regarding the last time some nutjob died because they couldn't torrent Sham'alyan's Avatar movie.
A fair point but I was meaning from a cultural vandalism angle.
They can't copyright the legal system. 🤦♂️
Court summons and legal battles.
I don’t know what went wrong that such a patent was granted. I absolutely loathe IP people.
Someone got paid, guaranteed.
This patent could have a chilling effect, but there's no way it would stand up in court. They can still use it as a bargaining chip. Court cases are expensive. And if you don't have a legal department, they are also a personal drain. But that's small fry. Financially, I don't believe it makes sense for them to resort to criminality to get such a patent. Maybe they hope it will influence their court case in Japan against Palworld?
Sort of the point though. If they take a small creator to court, they can just bankrupt them through expensive legal proceedings, and because they do have the patents the judge is unlikely to throw the case out
Yes, absolutely. And there is money in patent trolling. I just don't see the business case here. Why damage the Nintendo brand with such shenanigans when you could leave the patent trolling to some formally independent company. Maybe I just underestimate how much money can be made by shaking down small devs.
What damage? Its been known for years what a scummy company Nintendo is and people still buy their games and consoles in the millions. The fans will just say that Nintendo is in the right and move on
It certainly seems that the patent office had discovered how lucrative kick backs can be.
You can thank good ole Walt Disney and his lawyers for first pissing all over the public domain laws and then throwing as much of his weight as he could behind increasing the penalties for copyright infringements.
Final Fantasy VIII, why are you crying?
Someone's about to get chocobo-kicked:
FF3 on the NES had summoning too
Onion Knights, assemble!
Macintosh Chess breaks this patent.
God there's so many companies that operate in Japan that will have problems with the summoning one alone. Square soft leaps to mind
This is a US patent; not directly relevant to Japanese operations.
Pretty sure Square soft operates in the United States as well.