News broke recently that Nintendo wants to stop Palworld sales in Japan through a court order. Nintendo may also try to expand the legal fight to other countries. The company is asking for 5 million yen, plus another 5 million for The Pokémon Company, totaling about $66,000. While the money isn't much, the sales ban could have big long-term effects.
Mueller points out a key issue: Nintendo hasn't named any patents that existed when Palworld came out. Instead, Nintendo filed updated patent applications from 2021 in February, March, and July this year, rushing them through Japanese courts.
He also notes that Nintendo's patents don't cover major tech breakthroughs. They're just game features Nintendo admits are in other games too. The patents are about specific Pokémon game rules, which can't be patented anywhere in the world.
To sum up, Mueller says his review shows Pocketpair didn't really copy anything. He thinks Nintendo is just "trying to use the patent system against a smaller, newer company in the market."
Talking to GameRant, Mueller adds that the lawsuit will probably take years to finish, so this fight isn't ending anytime soon.
