The trio of patents asserted by Nintendo as the basis for its ongoing lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair represent only a portion of Nintendo's efforts to secure patent protections on creature capturing, battling, and riding mechanics. Last week, however, that effort hit a hurdle: The Japanese Patent Office rejected one of Nintendo's pending patent applications as failing to demonstrate an "inventive step" that would differentiate it from prior art (via GamesFray).
While the patent application in question, JP 2024-031879, isn't directly relevant to the Palworld lawsuit, it's related to patents that are: It's the child application of one of the patents asserted in Nintendo's accusations and is itself the parent application of another. The rejection, therefore, could give Pocketpair a rhetorical opportunity to encourage a similar investigation of the patents it's accused of infringing.
The rejected patent application describes the implementation of mechanics for aiming and throwing items to capture or battle creatures like those used in 2023's Pokémon Legends: Arceus. For a patent to be granted, the application's claims must demonstrate an innovation unique enough from prior art in the field that it merits protection.
In the rejected application, Nintendo claims that the Legends: Arceus mechanics constitute a novel invention by combining third person aiming with two modes to throw items that either affect a target character—like stunning it or capturing it—or initiate combat against the target character by releasing a creature to battle it.
The JPO examiner disagreed, because somebody brought receipts.
In its rejection notice, the Patent Office said that it considered a third-party submission, which showed that similar aiming and projectile mechanics existed in games that predated the 2024 application. Among the prior art cited are creature battling systems and status-inflicting projectiles in ARK, tranq bomb throwing in Monster Hunter, monster catching in Pocketpair's Craftopia, and even the Poké Ball aiming reticle in Nintendo's own Pokémon Go.
In a machine translation of the rejection notice, the JPO said it refused the claims of the application because they "could have easily been made by persons who have common knowledge in the technical field to which the claimed invention(s) pertains," as demonstrated by those prior game releases.
It's worth noting that the JPO examiner's decision is non-final, and Nintendo has the ability to pursue an appeal with Japan's Intellectual Property High Court—which would be another lengthy process in itself. But while the refusal of the 031879 application doesn't directly affect the odds of the Palworld lawsuit, it could give Pocketpair more space to question the validity of the patents being asserted against it.
GamesFray notes that the presiding judges in patent lawsuits tend to weigh the decisions of JPO patent examiners in their deliberations. Additionally, Pocketpair has access to mechanisms similar to a request for judicial notice in US law, which would allow it to formally request that the presiding judge consider the JPO's refusal of the 031879 application while assessing the validity of the lawsuit's related patents.
Meanwhile, considering the bold "mods don't count as real games" stance Nintendo assumed just last month, it's safe to assume that it will be investigating every possible angle for shoring up the validity of its asserted patents as the lawsuit proceeds.
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