Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are suing Palworld developer Pocketpair

videogameschronicle.com:

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair, they announced on Wednesday.

This lawsuit, which was filed in the Tokyo District Court, seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages “on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.”

“Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights, including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years,” it said in a statement.

Released in January via Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, the monster-catching survival game Palworld was an immediate hit, attracting 25 million players in just its first month, according to Pocketpair.

However, the game’s huge success ignited debate around perceived similarities between its character designs and those of the Pokémon games.

Although the gameplay of Palworld is vastly different from Nintendo’s series, debate swelled around the perceived influence its character designs have taken from Pokémon, and whether it could be interpreted as plagiarism.

There were even some accusations that Palworld’s 3D models were nearly identical to those found in Pokémon games, with two experienced AAA game artists telling VGC that, if this was indeed the case, it would likely indicate that Palworld’s character models were based on Pokémon assets.

However, since the lawsuit filed today is a patent suit – and not a copyright suit – it suggests Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s complaint is likely focused on its gameplay inventions, rather than similarities between character designs.

David Hansel, an intellectual property and digital media lawyer at Hansel Henson, told VGC earlier this year that Nintendo would need “a smoking gun” for any copyright case to be successful.

“It’s down to Nintendo to absolutely prove copying, not merely taking