Well that took a while but its finally here.
But also incoming Moon channel video now
Claiming “multiple patent rights” without mentioning smells like kafkatrapping.
I think that Nintendo’s delayed reaction was to gauge how much money it could get from bullying Pocketpair to accept some unfavourable settlement outside the court; if too little the costs would be too high to bother, considering the risk, but now that Palworld sold a bazillion it’s more profitable to do so. It might actually backfire if Palworld decides to go through the whole thing, I don’t know how Japanese law works in this regard but if Nintendo loses this certainly won’t look good for them, and even if they win it might be a pyrrhic victory.
Claiming “multiple patent rights” without mentioning smells like kafkatrapping.
No, this is normal. If there is a case, then it needs to be handled in the court first.
I don’t get it. I mean I get it because it’s Ninty, but I don’t get why now?
Has there been something in a major new feature update that has finally tipped the scales into clearly taking the piss, or have the legal team at Big N finally seen their erections subside after the game’s launch and only now can move enough to do something about it?
Considering they’re going for patent infringement and not copyright infringement, it’s possible it just took this long for Nintendo’s legal department to find something even remotely tangible that they could sue over. And since they haven’t said what patents Palworld infringes on, I have to assume whatever it is, is very flimsy.
Despite their reputation for being quick, my opinion is that Nintendo does often take their time. Most of the things they take down do exist for months or years (and also follow the same format of a ROM hack that got a lot of attention so easy copy paste). My assumption is they’re just dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s and patent is just what they think they’ll have the best chance at winning.
Going back to Yuzu, Nintendo was in Discord and all over the place monitoring and collecting evidence even since Tears of the Kingdom launch. It took almost a year before the final attack with overwhelming number and secured evidence. Nintendo is not fucking around and is serious, that’s for sure. So if Nintendo attacks, they often have a point or (legal) reason to.
That’s why I’m so curious in this case. I would hope that Nintendo being (legally) wrong for once.
My best guess: whatever they’re filing now was so exhaustively researched that it took months to prepare the strongest case they’re able to make, possibly delayed by the lawyers working on several other cases. Plus waiting until sales have dried up can maximize damages.
Another possibility is that Nintendo/TPC is planning to make some big Pokémon announcements soon and wants to target this shortly before their own new games to reduce competition. Palworld might seem like more of a threat to the execs now that Pokémon is nearing a major release than it was in the middle of a long drought for the series.
Go fuck yourselves Nintendo
Hopefully Pocketpair wins, because they made the better monster catching game. I’m still reeling from how bad the performance is in Scarlet/Violet.
infringes multiple patent rights
What exactly is infringed here? I don’t see Palworld infringing anything Nintendo does (no its not sarcasm).
I’m not sure how the term “patent” is to be interpreted here. It could be used like back in the days when Apple sued Samsung because their phone had rounded edges too…
Like a “design patent” (sorry, I’m not a native English speaker, so I’m unsure if this is the correct translation).
A lot of the pals in the game look quite close to Pokémon. Not identical, of course, but so similar that one just has to wonder if the design has been “inspired” by Pokémon…
Pokemon design isn’t patented, they are secured by copyright. As long as they do not copy a Pokemon design directly, they are safe. Being inspired is not a copyright infringement. Patents usually are about hardware and other mechanical solutions, in example a certain dialog system. And it needs to be patented and all patents are open to see, I think.
Gameplay can be patented. Namco patented the mechanics of Katamari Damacy, for example.
It depends on what kind of patent. I just googled the term I had used before, and it is indeed what I expected it to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
And yes, that name is stupid. That’s why I am happy that my native language, German, has a better distinction between “Patent” (what you described) and “Geschmacksmuster” (design patent).
About patents being public: They are. That’s because the idea behind patents is that after they expire, anyone can use them to build the technology they describe. The temporary exclusive usage rights that they offer are meant as an incentive for inventors to publish their findings. The only problem is that the legal situation did not keep up with the creativity of patent lawyers… (I will stop now, otherwise this will turn into an endless rant about how broken the patent system is.)
You could almost say… Parodied 😯
Right, legally speaking that would be covered in the US.
But Japanese law is completely different and IIRC parodies are not covered which is why anime always censors their parody references to other anime. It’s stupid, but it’s the society that both developers are from.
Only time will tell what they’re actually accusing Pocket Pair of doing though.
edit: censors, not sensors. 🤣
Only thing I can think of are maybe the catching mechanics (which are straight out of Legends: Arceus). No idea if these would be considered unique enough to be patentable, guess we’ll find out.
They literally tried to patent the loading screen and mechanically locking a player object to a moving object ingame just after the release of TotK. Nintendo is the absolute king of frivolous gaming patents. Here’s hoping it’s their downfall. For an example of how seriously vague some of the patents they’ve been granted are, check out some of their current ones after pokemon sleep’s initial success (basically trying to keep everyone without 9 digit money out of the sleep app game space).
In a case where a second camera operation through a third input unit using an inertial sensor is performed while a pointer operation process based on a pointer operation through a first input unit or a camera operation process based on a first camera operation through a second input unit is performed, an absolute value of a quantity of change in a position or an image capturing direction of a virtual camera based on the second camera operation is reduced as compared with a case where the second camera operation is performed when neither of the pointer operation process based on the pointer operation and the camera operation process based on the first camera operation are performed.
Holy mother of long sentences
Those patent abstracts are wild.
