When Palworld was released, its similarities to Nintendo’s Pokemon were thrown into question, prompting a lawsuit in which Nintendo claims Pocketpair has copied some of Pokemon’s patents. Now, in the latest update on the suit, one patent has been quietly changed.
Nintendo’s lawsuit against Pocketpair has been ongoing for some time, accusing the Palworld developers of infringing on its intellectual property. The suit outlines a list of patents, visual styles, and gameplay elements that Nintendo claims ownership of.
Two of them relate to collecting characters, like using Pokeballs to catch Pokemon, and the other was in relation to smooth switching between riding objects, like switching from horseback to flying on the back of a bird. Now, in a recent update, Nintendo has changed the latter patent, and even experts are finding it “bizarre.”
Nintendo changes patent in Palworld lawsuit
A few months ago, Nintendo requested a modification to one of its patents within the lawsuit, which has been approved and published. While it’s only a minor change, the patent has even legal experts confused.
The major change is the addition of “even when” during the patent explanation, which isn’t something usually added in legal documents.
An excerpt of the patent reads:
“and even when [emphasis added] any boarding character other than the aerial boarding character capable of moving in the air is the currently selected boarding character and a first operation input is given when the player character is in the air, the computer causes the aerial boarding character to appear in the virtual space, and causes the player character to board the aerial boarding character instead of the currently selected boarding character from among the boarding characters.”
Legal expert Florian Mueller at Gamesfray gave their expert opinion on the ongoing case: “I’ve been following patent litigation for 15 years (for the better part of that period as a consultant) and have seen many claims that were amended, but I’ve never seen ‘even when’ or ‘even if’ in a patent claim. It’s bizarre.”
What this means for the lawsuit is up for debate, but many are speculating that this is the first sign of Nintendo starting to panic: “Apparently Nintendo changed their Palworld Patent mid Lawsuit. I wonder if Nintendo starts to lose faith in their own Lawsuit.”
Others echoed the sentiment: “Nintendo is taking drastic measures in a patent infringement case against Palworld. Pocketpair has a stronger defense than Nintendo expected.”
Whether this is the case is hard to tell, but the changes certainly mean Nintendo is cracking down on the case.
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