Nintendo’s attempts to destroy Palworld via the patent courts are not going well at all. The company that’s so accustomed to court cases going its way just cannot catch a break when it comes to its attempts to thwart Pocketpair’s blatant baiting. The latest blow (via Games Fray) comes as a U.S. patent examiner rejected Nintendo’s ridiculous character summoning patent, although this is still far from over.
Nintendo’s patent #12,403,397 was inexplicably granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in July of last year, despite its obvious flaws and the ludicrous restrictions it would put on all other game development: it allowed Nintendo to take a company to court for infringement if it created a video game that let the player summon other characters for battles. It really was that broad, going as far as to prevent anyone else from being allowed to summon “sub-characters,” whether for direct or indirect control. It made no sense that “397,” as it’s known, was granted at the time, and were Nintendo to use it, it could have huge implications across the whole industry.
A few months later, Trump’s man at the USPTO, John A. Squires, woke up and realized what he’d done. Spotting that Konami, Bandai Namco and even Nintendo itself had already filed patents in years past that should have prevented 397 from passing, a fresh look was demanded. And today, the beginning stages of getting it off the books are in place.
As Games Fray reports (and all credit must go to that site for its relentless reporting on this subject), the USPTO has now put out a “non-final Office action” which rejects all claims in the patent.
The “non-final” part is important. This isn’t over, and Nintendo can still appeal—the company has two months to do so, and can extend that for any reason. But shouldn’t the obviously unacceptable nature of the patent prevent success? Well, no, because patent law is a gruesome mess that no one is paid enough to try to fathom, although Games Fray is somehow willing if you really want to get into the weeds.
Patently Absurd
This isn’t Nintendo’s only big fail when it comes to patent trolling. So furious was the Switch maker that Palworld had provocatively copied its Pokémon characters that, knowing there was little hope of taking it down over claims that it was passing itself off as an authentic Pokémon product, it decided to try to file patents after the fact to claim prior art. But whether it was acting on over-confidence or bad legal advice, few have been impressed by its approach. It eventually came to light that Nintendo was suing Pocketpair for just $65,000, and that a number of the patents it was attempting to use in the process were based on amendments and filings made after Palworld came out. Then in October of last year, the Japanese Patent Office pointed out just how dubious this was, noting that games like Monster Hunter 4 and ARK featured the mechanics Nintendo was attempting to belatedly claim long before Scarlet and Violet came out.
With both Japanese and U.S. patent offices looking askance at Nintendo’s peculiar desperation to bring down Pocketpair (who, let’s not forget, were absolutely baiting Nintendo from the start), it would be the seemly thing for the Mario makers to just sit back down and let this one fade away. Sadly, that seems enormously unlikely.
