The Japan Patent Office has rejected Nintendo’s monster-catching patent application after an examiner cited footage from a 2013 Pokemon fan game as prior art. The decision is significant because it uses an unofficial Pokemon project as evidence against an application from the same patent family as the two patents Nintendo is seeking to enforce against Palworld developer Pocketpair.
In spring 2026, Nintendo filed a patent application covering a touchscreen-based monster-catching system that some industry watchers interpreted as a potential threat to Palworld Mobile. The filing, identified as application No. 2026-019762, was not directly involved in the ongoing lawsuit against Pocketpair, although Nintendo described it as belonging to the same patent family. It covered mechanics including touchscreen movement, capture items, summoned battle creatures, command selection, and catching field characters both in and outside combat.
‘Pokemon Generations’ Fan Project Cited as Prior Art in Nintendo Patent Rejection
After the application was initially rejected in late April 2026, Nintendo received another rejection in mid-July 2026, according to Japan Patent Office filings obtained by Games Fray. The examiner maintained that Nintendo’s claims lacked an inventive step because they combined gameplay and touchscreen techniques already demonstrated in earlier material. Notably, the cited prior art included not only titles from third-party publishers, but also a Pokemon fan project titled Pokemon Generations.
The JPO specifically cited a June 2013 YouTube video titled “Pokemon Generations – 3D Indie Pokemon Gameplay,” which was published more than eight years before the application’s December 2021 priority date. Nintendo reportedly argued that the footage should not qualify as prior art because the fan project infringed Pokemon-related copyrights. The examiner rejected that argument, finding that the alleged infringement did not alter what the publicly available video demonstrated: that some of the systems Nintendo sought to patent were not unique or original in any sense.
Fan-Made Pokemon Content Has Also Surfaced in Nintendo’s Patent Dispute with Palworld
This is not the first example of a Pokemon-related fan project being cited against a Nintendo patent. In invalidity arguments filed in February 2025, Palworld developer Pocketpair cited one Pokemon-themed mod for Dark Souls 3 as prior art against Nintendo’s patents. Pocketpair argued that the 2020 mod in question, Pocket Souls, demonstrated several previously established monster-capturing mechanics (e.g., selecting field targets and displaying the likelihood of a successful capture) before the December 2021 priority date of Nintendo’s patent family.
Older Mobile Games Also Weakened Nintendo’s Patent Claims
The Pokemon Generations footage was only one part of the JPO’s analysis. Other cited material included coverage of ARK Mobile and PUBG Mobile, some official information about Pokemon X and Y, another Pokemon gameplay video, and several earlier Japanese patent publications. The JPO examiner did not identify every claimed element from the application in a single source. Instead, the examiner concluded that a reasonably skilled developer could readily combine established touchscreen controls with known gameplay mechanics, including capture attempts during battle and determining whether a thrown item succeeds or fails, to create the type of creature-capture system Nintendo sought to patent.
The refusal ends the application’s ordinary examination, leaving Nintendo three months to request an appeal trial before a JPO panel. The company could also pursue narrower claims through another divisional application, provided it is not ready to abandon the filing altogether.
