Gaming

Claiming "multiple patent rights" without mentioning smells like kafkatrapping.

I think that Nintendo's delayed reaction was to gauge how much money it could get from bullying Pocketpair to accept some unfavourable settlement outside the court; if too little the costs would be too high to bother, considering the risk, but now that Palworld sold a bazillion it's more profitable to do so. It might actually backfire if Palworld decides to go through the whole thing, I don't know how Japanese law works in this regard but if Nintendo loses this certainly won't look good for them, and even if they win it might be a pyrrhic victory.

I don't get it. I mean I get it because it's Ninty, but I don't get why now?

Has there been something in a major new feature update that has finally tipped the scales into clearly taking the piss, or have the legal team at Big N finally seen their erections subside after the game's launch and only now can move enough to do something about it?

Go fuck yourselves Nintendo

Hopefully Pocketpair wins, because they made the better monster catching game. I'm still reeling from how bad the performance is in Scarlet/Violet.

infringes multiple patent rights

What exactly is infringed here? I don't see Palworld infringing anything Nintendo does (no its not sarcasm).

The claim says patent claim. This isn't design related then. What is the claim then? Appearance of monsters doesn't make a patent case.

If it's about those pretty similar character models like those linked in the article, then I can understand Nintendo better.
But if it's just about the concept of "collecting monsters" and using them in battles somehow, then they can go fuck themselves. I'm eager to learn where they see their patents infringed.

If corporations are to be considered people they should have to have shins or something to kick them in!

Am tired of hearing about Nintendo attacking everyone who even thinks about fun outside of their discrete products.

The details are still up in the air, but 404media has chimed in with a legal expert on this deplorable situation. They mostly talk about what damage this could do, and how Nintendo has never lost a lawsuit, but I found this to be an interesting key point

https://www.404media.co/cold-blooded-business-nintendo-is-patent-trolling-palworld-because-it-got-too-big/

Nintendo has, as I mentioned in my tweet, a legendary track record. I think they never lost a lawsuit that they initiated themselves, and under the Japanese legal system, seven years ago, they sued a company called Colopl, which is a mobile gaming powerhouse from Japan. They [Colopl] have, I think, almost 2,000 [employees], nobody but knows them outside Japan but they had a famous mobile game called White Cat Project, not copying Mario, not copying Pokémon, not copying Zelda, nothing at all. Nintendo brought forward six patents that they thought that this company was violating inside their very successful mobile game at one time. It was one of the most popular mobile games in Japan, and they built a huge case. One of the patents was for a confirmation screen after sleep mode. You know when devices are sleeping and you want to resume there's a confirmation screen in a lot of games? “Are you sure you want to resume?” And then you tap yes or no. Nintendo has a patent on that, and this game uses it. And then Nintendo said, you know, look, you're using our patent and you cannot do that. You're not paying us any licensing fees.

And they had five other ones, including one for isometric, pseudo, 3D games, when the character is hidden behind the tree, the game forms a shadow, so you have a kind of sense for where the character is, even though you don't see the character clearly. Nintendo has a patent on that, and this game uses that technology. And Nintendo said, look, you cannot do this. And this goes on with four other patents, right?

So they had this legal battle. Colopl said, no way, but in 2021 they had a settlement where Nintendo got the equivalent of $20 Million US dollars and Colopl is now paying licensing fees to Nintendo for continuing to use the patents inside their mobile game. So it was a complete win for Nintendo, even though it was technically a settlement. I personally think you will see that after a few years, Nintendo will be in a very, very similar position. I don't think that Nintendo will even think about filing a lawsuit like this without being as sure as they can that they're going to win this.

If you are unaware, this was done because of the launch of Dragalia Lost, a game that has long been forgotten, and discontinued.

Somebody was suggesting this was deliberately done to bleed Pocketpair out of money and halt development that way, patent cases take years to be solved, and all during this time they have to keep paying lawyers. Nintendo likely has a small army of in-house lawyers so it's no trouble to them, but to their victims it's life-ruining.

I understand and participate in the hate against Nintendo but Palworld was a game with such bad taste for me that I am just grabbing the popcorn on this one. For anyone surprised regarding the patents, for Tears of the Kingdom alone, Nintendo tried to file at least 30 patents. I have no idea how many they must have for mechanics from Pokémon.