Even Japanese patent authorities rejected Nintendo's defense in the legal dispute against Palworld.
As we already know, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have once again suffered a new blow in the legal dispute against Palworld developer Pocketpair. After the Japanese Patent Office rejected their arguments regarding one of the patents they are using in their case. The Japanese Patent Office ruled that Nintendo failed to prove that the patent was valid, which is why its application to continue the protection was rejected.
The most interesting thing is that Nintendo tried to defend the patent by arguing that the earliest examples of games that Pocketpair cited were not similar enough to its system for capturing and using creatures/pets.
However, the Japanese Patent Office this time actually did not agree with that argument. As one of the examples of prior art, they used Monster Hunter 4 and many other earlier games which, according to the office's assessment, already contained sufficiently similar mechanics to call the novelty of Nintendo's patent into question.
Because of this, the patent was rejected, while Nintendo can now try to modify its claims or continue the legal battle through another route.
The gaming community mostly welcomed the news positively, especially players who have believed from the beginning that Nintendo was trying to protect overly broad gameplay mechanics.
Nintendo has suffered another blow in the patent dispute against Palworld, after the Japanese Patent Office rejected its defense of one of the disputed patents.
The case is not over yet, but this move represents an important victory for Pocketpair and further complicates Nintendo's legal battle against Palworld.
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