Summary
Pocketpair has presented a comprehensive, multi-argument defense against Nintendo’sPalworldlawsuit. ThePalworlddeveloper’s response to Nintendo’s patent complaint references a variety of games, ranging fromOctopath TravelertoFar Cry 5.
In September 2024,Nintendo and The Pokemon Company sued Pocketpairin Japan, alleging thatPalworldinfringes on several of their jointly held patents. ThePalworlddeveloper publicly vowed to fight the lawsuit but has shared no details on how it intends to do so.
The first concrete information on the company’s defense strategy has now emerged viaGames Fray, who obtained Pocketpair’s initial response to the lawsuit from the Tokyo District Court. The company targeted each of the three patents from thepatent family at the center of thePalworldcomplaintwith both invalidity and non-infringement arguments.
Palworld’s Prior Art Defense Against Patent JP7545191
In regard to claims relating to patent JP7545191, which describes a system for capturing creatures and releasing creatures into battle, Pocketpair argued that none of its elements were new at the time of its late 2021 filing. The company used its prior game,Craftopia, to illustrate this claim, arguing that while it doesn’t do everything Nintendo’s patent describes, it could easily be combined with features from other existing games to arrive at the same result. The company also citedTitanfall 2,Far Cry 5,Tomb Raider, andOctopath Traveleramong prior titles whose systems overlap with patent JP7545191, and which could be combined withCraftopiato end up withPalworld’s creature capture system.
Palworld’s Prior Art Defense Against Patents JP7493117 and JP7528390
Pocketpair made a similar claim in response to patent JP7493117, which describes a system for aiming a capture item and calculating creature capture chances. Here, the company’s invalidity argument starts withDark Souls 3modPocket Souls, which allows players to capture enemies and use them against one another. Pocketpair said that combining its ideas withCraftopia, theFallout 4modNukaMon,Monster Super League, orNexomonwould have been enough to arrive at mechanics similar to those inPalworld. The final part of the developer’s prior art defense is aimed at patent JP7528390, which describes a system for switching ridable objects—such as Pals or Pokemon—on the fly. Here, Pocketpair points toARKas an obvious case of prior art that doesn’t even need to be combined with anything else to render Nintendo’s patent invalid.
Pocketpair also made multiple non-infringement arguments against each of the three patents in the lawsuit. These will only come into play if the company fails to successfully argue invalidity. The non-infringement arguments were submitted to the Tokyo District Court on June 28, 2025, whereas the invalidity defense followed on February 21.
