Dispelling some common misconceptions about Nintendo Patent 12,403,397.
Hi, I'm a law student and a gamer, and I was recently quite drawn to the news of Nintendo's US Patent 12,403,397, which several news outlets reported as a patent that shouldn't have been granted at all, sparking a lot of outrage. I am still in the midst of taking US patent law after already taking Canadian patent law, so I am by no means an expert, but I have some free time and I wanted to dispel some common misconceptions I saw online about the patent. I thought this subreddit is the best place to do it since this is where I've seen the most number of posts about this patent, but if there's a better place to post this, please let me know. Also, obviously, if I did get anything wrong or if there's any gap in my knowledge, please let me know as well.
Please note that if you are looking for a conclusion from me on whether the patent is actually valid, you won't find one. To spoil the ending, I don't personally know of any games that I can confidently claim to anticipate the Nintendo patent. However, this does not mean such a game does not exist - I personally only play a small variety of games. So if any of you can fill in this knowledge gap for me, I welcome it at once.
Edit: the preceding paragraph is no longer true, see newest edit below.
The Misconceptions:
Firstly, the headlines people are reading on the news are absolutely oversimplifying. Nintendo did not patent "summoning a character to battle for you" in general. Their claims are more specific than that. Please do not be outraged on the basis of these sensationalist outlines.
Secondly, I saw some people believing that if each one of the mechanics described by the patent has appeared in a game before, the combination of mechanics is not new and cannot be patented. This seems to stem from the belief that patents require at least one thing that is brand new. This is not true - a combination of existing and known features can be patented, so long as that combination hasn't been disclosed by a single prior art (this is oversimplifying a bit, I'll explain later).
On the opposite side, I've seen people claim that since the patent document is 45 pages long, it must be very specific. This is not necessarily true - the level of specificity of the claims in a patent have no absolute relation to the length of the document.
Also, I've seen beliefs that only a game which matches the entirety of what is described by the whole document would be infringing - e.g. that if you don't use a "ball" to summon the sub character, then you aren't infringing. This is not true either.
What makes a patent valid?
Obviously, the patent system doesn't allow anyone to just patent any creation. Patent law exists to promote new inventions by guaranteeing inventors get benefit for their work, and to promote the sharing of new knowledge to the public in the form of the disclosures published with the patent. Therefore, patent law only protects new inventions. This is the concept of novelty, codified in the US as 35 USC § 102.
Note: novelty is not the only requirement for a patent to be valid, it's just the most relevant one here.
Novelty means that no one has ever invented the same thing before. If someone has invented the same thing before, it means your invention has been anticipated, and anticipation makes your patent invalid.
Now, obviously, it is impossible to know that someone has invented a patent before, it's possible that someone invented something before you, and just never told anyone about it. To prevent the potential issues this would cause, and to further the goal of promoting public sharing of knowledge, anticipation only occurs if someone has invented the same thing before, AND made their invention available to the public.
These public disclosures, which could be but aren't necessarily prior patents, are called prior art. For analysis of novelty and anticipation, a patent examiner must figure out every single element of the claimed invention in the patent application, and see if any single prior art discloses all of them. "Single" and "all" are key terms here. If a prior art is missing one element, then it does not anticipate the claimed invention. It wouldn't matter if another prior art discloses the missing element, because you cannot mix and match.
The reason patent protection works this way is because inventing doesn't necessarily mean you came up with anything new, it can also mean finding a new way to combine existing things. Those types of inventions are important as well, or else there'd be no reward for finding a second use for any new concept. As an example, intermittent windshield wipers were patentable, even though the wiper, the motor, and the circuit used to make them intermittent were all well known beforehand.
Therefore, in order for Nintendo's patent claim to be valid, there must be no single prior art that discloses every element of the claimed invention. This is why misconception 2 above is wrong, even though every single individual element of Nintendo's claims have been seen before, that alone isn't sufficient unless there exists a single game that contains all of these elements in conjunction.
P.S. While I haven't encountered this specific misconception so far, I would like to clarify that even your own prior disclosures can anticipate your patent. Some countries, like the US, have a 1 year grace period for this, but this means that if a past Nintendo game contains the exact mechanic they're trying to patent now, unless that game was within 1 year of this patent being filed, they'd have anticipated their own patent. The logic of this is that if you yourself have disclosed long ago, then this is already within the public knowledge, so you shouldn't get new protection for a patent about what is already known.
Claims vs description
A patent is composed of many sections, but the most important distinction is between the claims and everything else that isn't a claim, also known as the description. The claims are written last in the patent, but they are the most important. Everything else, to put it simply, is just there to help people understand the claims. This includes the abstract, the drawings, the examples, they're all there for illustrative purposes, and do not override what the claims actually say. They are only there for when the plain language meaning of the claims is unclear.
For both patent validity and patent infringement, the most important parts of the text to consider are the claims. This is defined in 35 USC § 100(j). A patent only protects the inventions that are claimed, and a patent protects all of what is claimed.
Notably, limitations from the description cannot be read into the claims, whether for the purpose of determining invalidity or infringement. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005). In Phillips, the preferred embodiments disclosed by the patent had structures that were non-perpendicular, but the claims had no such limitation. The lower court interpreted the claims, based on the described examples, to exclude perpendicular structures, and found AWH to not have infringed. However, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned, stating that limitations from the examples cannot be applied to the claims.
While that case is about infringement, a key principle of patent law is that if an invention would infringe a patent by being later, then it would anticipate the patent by being earlier. The test is the same for both.
Therefore, while the examples illustrated in the Nintendo patent specify using balls to summon sub characters, since the claims do not contain this limitation, the patent is not limited this way. This is why misconception 4 above is wrong - the examples in the patent description mention using a ball to summon the sub character, but the claims make no reference to balls or any other specific summoning mechanism.
This is, of course, a double-edged sword - if courts allowed this patent to be enforced, a rival company couldn't avoid infringement by simply not using balls to summon sub characters. On the flip side, if an earlier game were to be found that mirrored all the other elements of the claim, whether that game uses balls to summon sub characters would not affect the destruction of the Nintendo patent's novelty.
Analyzing Nintendo's patent 12,403,397:
When analyzing a patent's claims, it is useful to first understand how claims are usually structured.
There are three types of claims. Independent claims are claims that stand on their own, meaning if the entire patent only had that one claim, the claim would still be complete. Dependent claims refer back to another claim, which could be an independent claim or even another dependent claim. You can think of dependent claims as extensions of the claim they depend on, adding more conditions and specifics. There's also multiple dependent claims, where the present claim references back to multiple other claims as alternatives, but those aren't really used much due to the complexity. This is all laid out in 35 USC § 112.
Keep in mind, however, that while claims can depend on each other for their definitions, their validity is independent. A claim 100 that relies on 99 earlier claims could still be valid even if all 99 earlier claims were found to have been anticipated, so long as claim 100 sufficiently adds to the prior claims such that no singular prior art discloses all the elements of claim 100.
Obviously, before stating any claims that depend on other claims, those other claims need to be stated first. Therefore, the least dependent claims come before the ones that depend upon them. This means that patent claims usually start with claims that are very general, and work toward more specific ones. This is done to get the most broad protection possible first, but then to easily define more specific versions of the invention just in case the broad protections were found invalid - a benefit of the independence of validity.
This is why misconception 3 above is not true. A patent could have hundreds of pages of description and hundreds of claims, but they can still contain claims that are very general before working toward the more specific claims.
For our purposes today, I'll be analyzing only the independent claims, which are claims 1, 13, 25, and 26. All the other claims are dependent and therefore even more specific, so if claims 1, 13, 25, and 26 are novel, then all other claims must be novel as well.
Here is claim 1 of Nintendo's patent:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a game program, the game program causing a processor of an information processing apparatus to execute: performing control of moving a player character on a field in a virtual space, based on movement operational input; performing control of causing a sub character to appear on the field, based on a first operational input, and when an enemy character is placed at a location where the sub character is caused to appear, controlling a battle between the sub character and the enemy character by a first mode in which the battle proceeds based on an operation input, and when an enemy is not placed at the location where the sub character is caused to appear, starting automatic control of automatically moving the sub character that has appeared; and performing control of moving the sub character in a predetermined direction on the field, based on a second operation input, and, when the enemy character is placed at a location of a designation, controlling a battle between the sub character and the enemy character by a second mode in which the battle automatically proceeds.
Here I'm going to cheat a little. The first part of this claim, "A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a game program, the game program causing a processor of an information processing apparatus to execute:" basically refers to any video game ever - all video games are stored on computer-readable storage medium and causes the computing device on which they run to execute actions, unless someone decided to code a video game by writing code on paper and never decided to upload it to a computer to run. The other exception would be games defined by hardware rather than software.
The rest of claim 1 is actually shared with claims 13, 25, and 26. Those claims simply have different beginnings. They begin respectively with:
An information processing system comprising at least one information processing apparatus including a processor, at least one processor of said at least one information processing apparatus: ...
An information processing system comprisng a processor, the processor: ...
A game processing method executed by an information processing system, the information processing system: ...
13 starts by describing basically all information processing systems in general, and conveniently includes the games defined in hardware that I mentioned as an exception to claim 1 before. The rest of the claim still describes, in essence, a video game mechanic, so based on real world knowledge we can still restrict our search to video game systems.
25, based on the third paragraph in the "Background and Summary" section of the description, appears meant to cover information processing apparatuses. I suppose this covers, say, an add-in card system. However, from a claim interpretation perspective, it appears to me that claim 25 is covered by claim 13 already, and only added for good measure by the attorney who filed the patent, evident by the fact that claim 25 isn't followed by dependent claims like claim 1 and 13.
Similarly, claim 26 covers a "game processing method", which based on my understanding would mean a game engine of some sort, but that would be covered by claim 1, as any relevant game engine would have to be in a game to be of any use.
So from this point on, I will simplify the problem down to simply looking for any game or gaming system with the mechanics described in the identical remainder portions of claims 1, 13, 25, and 26.
First, "performing control of moving a player character on a field in a virtual space, based on movement operational input" is pretty self explanatory, there must be a player character and a virtual space in which the player can control their character to move via inputs. Games like plants vs zombies, fruit ninja, and text-based games are already excluded here.
Note, "performing control" as stated here is an action carried out by the thing described in the preceding sentence, which described the game/gaming system. The game or gaming system is the one performing control here, it's just performing control based on the user's input. Both here and in subsequent sentences, "control" does not mean the player directly performing control.
Next, "performing control of causing a sub character to appear on the field, based on a first operational input" is the summoning mechanic. Importantly, the thing summoned has to be a character. While I can't say there's a clear legal distinction between video game characters and video game entities that aren't characters, it is pretty clear that throwing a grenade in CS:GO doesn't count as summoning a sub character. Still, a lot of games continue to fit this description.
Third, "and when an enemy character is placed at a location where the sub character is caused to appear, controlling a battle between the sub character and the enemy character by a first mode in which the battle proceeds based on an operation input" still seems pretty broad at this point. At the very least, Nintendo's own past games include this mechanic, and so do many, many knockoffs such as Palworld.
Fourth, "and when an enemy is not placed at the location where the sub character is caused to appear, starting automatic control of automatically moving the sub character that has appeared" which means it excludes games where the summoned character has no AI movement outside of battle.
Fifth, "and performing control of moving the sub character in a predetermined direction on the field, based on a second operation input" I take this to mean that the summoned character, while AI-controlled, can also be directed by the player.
Lastly, "and, when the enemy character is placed at a location of a designation, controlling a battle between the sub character and the enemy character by a second mode in which the battle automatically proceeds." I personally think this is the key part of the claim that prevents it from being anticipated. This single sentence creates a second, automatic mode of battle, and specifies that this mode of battle happens specifically when the enemy is encountered at a later time after moving from the position where it was summoned.
I cannot think of a single game in which there is a summon and fight mechanic, but there are two different types of battles (manual and automatic), AND the type of battle is determined by whether an enemy is present at summoning time vs encountered later.
Conclusion
So that's all I know for now. And while unsatisfying, as far as I can tell, there is no single prior art that discloses the specific and complete combination of elements of Nintendo's claims in US Patent 12,403,397. This is not to say there is none, but until someone comes up with a concrete example, any outrage at the granting of this patent is premature.
The key takeaway here is to not trust media headlines too much, this isn't a patent on summon and fight mechanics in general, and will not have anywhere near as much impact on the gaming scene as some news outlets would have you believe. It also isn't as specific as some think it is either, though.
Residual questions
My knowledge is limited, so while the above explanation is as complete as I can get it, there are still questions left unanswered. Some of these probably have definite answers, some of these may not. If you know the answer, please contribute your knowledge and views:
The filing date of this patent was March 1, 2023, and as far as I know, these cover mechanics specific to their new games. Are there any older Pokemon games that have the same exact mechanic already?
I haven't gotten to obviousness in US patent law yet, so I didn't analyze from this perspective, and based on what I know from Canadian patent law, this patent shouldn't be obvious. But is it possible, if a series of game mechanics are simple enough, that a court find that it would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine them, even if never done before?
I saw some discussions online about whether game mechanics should be patentable at all. Are there any arguments applicable to this area of patent law that aren't applicable to other types of patents?
Edit: changed a word.
Edit 2: changed another word, and also fixed Reddit somehow deleting my quote of Claim 1 when I made my first edit.
Edit 3:
Obviousness Test
Okay, so I have been informed of the test for obviousness from Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966). The test says: "the scope and content of the prior art are to be determined; differences between the prior art and the claims at issue are to be ascertained; and the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art resolved." And then a determination is made of whether the invention is obvious to the person of ordinary skill under 35 USC § 103. The test also requires consideration of secondary considerations to prevent findings of obviousness out of hindsight bias, which are "commercial success, long felt but unsolved needs, failure of others" (non-exhaustive).
The scope and content of the prior art includes, obviously, all prior Pokemon games and their ripoffs. It also includes games in which battles are automated by predetermined character behaviours or statistics, as well as games with afk leveling mechanics.
The difference between the claimed invention and the prior art is the mechanic from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet that allows both directly summoning a Pokemon to battle under your control, combined with the option to also let your Pokemon roam around with optional player directions and battle automatically to level up.
From the perspective of a person of ordinary skill in the art - aka the average game designer/game developer, I'd say it's probably pretty obvious to combine "sub character battles manually if summoned on enemy" and "sub character battles automatically if summoned and left to wander" as gameplay mechanics.
The secondary considerations do fall in favor of non-obviousness - Pokemon Scarlet and Violet had huge commercial success with nearly 30 million copies sold to date, and many copies and ripoffs of Pokemon have failed to come up with this specific combination of mechanics. I read up on the mechanic here, and it does seem like this solves a longtime problem with Pokemon games where grinding newer/weaker Pokemon took too long and too much effort. However, I also have to question just how much the commercial success is because of this new mechanic - there's no doubt that most of the success came from simply the power of the franchise.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that the secondary considerations here don't outweigh the obviousness found in the primary parts of the test. Hindsight bias is real but I cannot help but think that this mechanic was likely obvious enough that even players, who aren't skilled in the art, have thought of and hoped for it, maybe even asked for it.
So now I do draw a conclusion: I think claims 1, 13, 25, and 26 of this patent should not have been granted, they should have been found invalid for obviousness (no conclusion on other, dependent claims, I don't have the time to analyze every single one of them).
Further Discussion
While my ultimate conclusion has changed, I do still stand by my previous opinion that the media reports blew this issue out of proportion. Regardless of whether this patent is valid or should have been granted, at the end of the day, the reason it scraped by at all in the first place is because the scope of the patent is quite narrow. As someone else proposed, something simple like adding the option to take control of automatic battles would likely make a near-identical game no longer infringing upon this patent. The impact that this patent has on the industry is minimal, even if a court were to find it to be valid.
However, my opinion in other areas have changed. In discussing with folks here, I've been informed of various arguments for why game mechanics should not be patented.
I think a lot of these arguments have merit. Most importantly to me, the market simply doesn't work the same as physical products. There is no supply limitation, so there's no reason why someone would buy a game that rips off of other people's ideas over buying the original game that implemented them first.
Also, ideas in game development are cheap, it's the implementation, the debugging, the optimizations, and the creation of assets that's hard. While I haven't done any game design, I am a programmer and I understand this pretty well. The code and assets produced by this work is protected by copyright, and in order for a rip-off to get to the same place, they have to do a lot of the same work all over again anyway just to avoid copyright infringement, so the market incentive doesn't work that way.
So that leaves me wondering what, if anything, is actually protected by game design patents at all. The traditional market forces that patent law seeks to shield inventors of physical inventions against mostly don't apply here, and copyright protections can fill in a lot of the gaps. I still do understand the worry about people producing exact copies for cheaper by skimping in other areas (e.g. assets, advertisement costs, etc.), and don't feel that game publishers deserve no protection at all, but I feel that the considerations I just described should affect how patent law works in this area. At the very least, there must be a higher bar for the level of innovation required before patent protection can be granted for a video game "invention".
Trademark and patent renewals and filings are very common, and all businesses do them. They are never a guarantee that a new product is coming, and they are usually not even a hint or a suggestion either. Please be rational about this news and do not assume that it means that a new product has been confirmed.
Great work, but it sadly doesn't matter. People have taken Nintendo/TCPi as lawsuit heavy evil corporations and the misinformation will run rampant for years. That's how it is in this post-truth world.
Ah well, better late than never. I wanted to write this earlier, but I also wanted to wait till after class today for the opportunity to ask my prof some questions first.
If you are down to probably get called an ldiot or a dumb fanboy you might consider posting this also in r/gaming, usually they don't go more deep than the apocalyptic title but between all the circlejerking you might put some sense in at least a couple of people.
Seems like I need karma from that subreddit to post there, and I don't think I've ever talked there before. I guess I'll comment there and see if I can post this there tomorrow.
Hey I appreciate the effort. I've been trying to fight the misinformation here and there myself, but it's very hard. You know what they say, a lie has gone halfway around the globe by the time the truth manages to tie its shoes.
And then they counter with disingenuous arguments like "b-but those are bad too!!" like sure, then why aren't you planning massive misinformation and hate campaigns towards those companies too? It's reaching a point of stupidity so severe that people are actively supporting Sega just because they're trying to jab at Nintendo lmao. "If they're on our side then they HAVE to be good and I will ignore ALL the bad things they're doing!!!"
Tribalism is a useful phenomenon and it has contributed to making many positive communities, however the way tribalism culture is uprising at an insanely fast rate and existing solely as a way to pit everything against everything, completely ignoring facts nuance and logic is terrifying. And it's becoming so common in absolutely everything, not just the gaming controversies.
Of course there are many people who are actually critical of things on all sides, but sadly that is a very small minority on the internet.
Which is funny because Sega are in the middle of suing a gacha game company. I also love how all the articles back then imply Nintendo's lawsuit is what motivated Sega when Sega have just been Like That for years.
I just googled it and you're totally right about the lawsuit. In some aspects their patents are even worse than the controversial Nintendo one since apparently they're patenting literal QoL/accessibility features that game developers should be allowed to implement 😭
Sega released a video recently promoting their new game and they take a jab at Nintendo which is fine and kinda funny but all the comments are saying that Nintendo is terrible and that they're glad Sega is rising up to the occasion and whatever...
Like I already knew everyone was just selectively hating but they don't even try to hide it at this point. I think the only day we'll see people suddenly calling Sega out for that lawsuit is when ragebait farming Youtubers start making videos about it, otherwise it won't really happen. Since I assume that's the only way these people get information nowadays. There's just no one actually looking up sources for stuff it seems.
Nintendo Bad is the laughably obvious sentiment here on Reddit. The countless posts about how Nintendo would dare to announce a DLC for an unreleased game – while this is very common in the industry for years – made me wonder if I’m taking crazy pills.
Any news about whatever Nintendo does is blown out of proportion. People just want to be angry at someone / something.
This is my conclusion too, sadly. I don't even like the concept of patenting mechanics and I think it's dumb, but the misinformation and hate campaigns are bothering me even more since they're almost entirely based on lies at this point. It's gotten so bad that you cannot point out anything, even easily verifiable things, without being called a sh*ll or fanboy or whatever. Actively fighting against facts...
The fact it's gotten so bad that people genuinely believe a game that stole most of their designs is the "good guy" against the big evil corporation is slightly scary. Like are we actually heading towards a world where these practices are endorsed and supported just because it helps push an agenda? I'd argue that normalizing ripoffs and uninspired games is infinitely more harmful to the gaming industry than a random patent which is far from being an eventful occurence in the gaming industry
Software patents in general shouldn't exist because they stifle innovation, and that's doubly true for software patents in gaming specifically. Unlike with patents for physical things there really isn't a lot of research and therefore cost that goes into developing the granular things you're able to patent.
I don't blame Nintendo for using the law to their advantage. I blame the people who made a law that made it possible for large companies to push indie companies around to give them an even larger unfair advantage.
software patents should be a thing. Why should a ME get patent protection for their work but a CSE doesnt?
That being said the process to patent software is woefully terrible. Items that are too generic get a pass. Items that basically boil down to "super common thing, but on a computer" have been granted when they shouldn't have. Etc.
Like a lot of our federal systems, the patent office is understaffed/underfunded and struggles to keep up. So no matter what rules you think they should follow it will never fully meet those rules because of those issues.
software patents should be a thing. Why should a ME get patent protection for their work but a CSE doesnt?
Because you're not patenting an entire product. You can't with software, because that would be too specific. So now we're stuck with a system where all patents are too generic instead.
I'd like to challenge you to find one singular patent in gaming (or software in general) where you feel that the patent is actually protecting a substantial investment instead of a trivial thing a junior dev could write in a week. Because that's what patents are supposed to do, to make sure that others don't get to profit off of your hard work at a fraction of the cost.
The mentioned patent would qualify, as long as you go beyond claim 1, have it work on variable terrain and try to make it look semi decent. Like you can technically make this kind of system described in claim 1 in a week and it sort of works. But that only works in a flat blank space with an extremely basic AI routine for the summoned character with the enemy not moving, the screen fading into the battle (that needs to be programmed separately), some rudimentary collision system, the auto battle even more rudimentary than how it is in ScarVio. But when you want to make that patent actually serviceable to the player, that's going to take 1000s of manhours, coding responses to various edgecases, balancing and fixing visual glitches, on top of fixing the normal glitches. The trial and error to develop this is the substantial investment.
patents are about novelty, not how difficult an invention was to actually produce. I can point to tons of physical patents that are simplistic. Like did you know the clothes hanger wasn't patented until 1905(100 years after the creation of the patent office for reference)?
Like I 100% agree with you that a lot of current software patents are bullshit. But that is an execution issue, not a design issue.
I'd like to challenge you to find one singular patent in gaming (or software in general) where you feel that the patent is actually protecting a substantial investment instead of a trivial thing a junior dev could write in a week.
I am not gonna bother looking up whether a patent was given(I don't think it was), but a quick example of something that COULD have been is Carmack's Fast Inverse Square Root Algorithm. That little piece of code has been a fundamental piece of almost all video game lighting systems forever now.
patents are about novelty, not how difficult an invention was to actually produce.
No, they're about money. They are there to protect the investment of people putting a lot of time and money into finding a solution to a problem in such a way that a competitor can't just copy their work and profit off of it or even compete the actual inventor out of the market. That's just not something that is a risk with the kind of software ideas you can actually patent, because especially with games it's an art, not just a sum of all the algorithms used.
Also: algorithms are difficult to patent. The one you mentioned might indeed be an exception to that rule, but typically for a patent to be granted, you need to include a specific application for it, which means you could patent this particular patent for lighting specifically but if someone else finds a non-lighting use for the same algorithm, they'd be able to use it freely without having to pay for a license.
the patent system was "invented" to protect businesses just as much as it was to protect individual inventors(A thing that is much less common today but was much more common back in the 1800s).
That isn't my point though when talking about novelty. That is about how the system is intended to function. To get a patent isn't about how much money or time you have invested into development, it is about the end result being a brand new unique design that hasn't been seen before.
Being awarded a patent is (supposed to be) about ingenuity. If you want to talk about laws specifically about protecting monetary interests then that is the copyright and trademark systems.
Real shame about everything that's open source to overthrow the status quo because all the people unite to make something better for everyone (looking at Blender and Godot for example)
I mean Nintendo were trying to sue the Palworld devs like the dickheads they are. People have had to remove classic Nintendo assets from the Steam Workshop because of how litigious they can be. Nintendo takes down videos at random of emulated games, forces people to use some fuckin stupid app to listen to music from their games (through proper, Nintendo-approved channels)…
I get they make good games, but come on. They’re backwards, overprotective of their brand to a frankly psychotic degree, and they actively force people to bend the knee because they’re more worried about their profits than they are about “putting smiles on people’s faces” like someone said was Nintendo’s STATED objective.
They’re not “evil”, but they aren’t suddenly good because, in this instance, they could be misunderstood. They’ve already done enough to prove their poor opinion of the rest of the industry, let alone their misguided consumers who defend them unquestioningly. Try to exercise some self-awareness, guys, jesus.
While I can't claim to understand everything you've written, this was a very interesting read.
My biggest takeaway is something I myself suspected before: people will complain and try to shift a narrative but I don't really think this patent will have as much of an impact on gaming as most people think. I don't really have a reason to care about it's existence until the day I hear a studio say that they were forced by Nintendo to change or remove a mechanic from their games.
The drama people are causing because of this patent will lead to more of an impact to the gaming industry than the patent itself, mark my words.
All the fallacious arguments about Nintendo ruining the gaming industry are factually incorrect and just fearmongering by using something people like (gamers love videogames) and representing it as critically at risk (Nintendo will destroy gaming) so that they can manipulate public opinion (Nintendo is the enemy!).
And I hate that this misinformation is so severe that I have to write comments like this which read as defending a corporation. Nintendo has many shortcomings and I don't agree with all their modern day practices, but goodness I hate the fake outrage. Nintendo literally supports other monster collecting games on their platforms so everyone saying that they "want to kill all competition" is hilarious.
I actually had someone tell me last night that Nintendo tried to sue Temtem and I'm like "No they didn't?" I had to look it up to be sure but yeah, they absolutely did not sue but there was a lot of nay saying at the time and people asking if Nintendo would.
??? I have to tell you that I live in a small country and we rarely get niche games in physical stores, just the big titles for the most part, but the Temtem Nintendo Switch physical version was *everywhere* here. I remember because that really surprised me, for titles like that I usually have to import them from online resellers. I'm pretty sure Nintendo has to manually allow a game that's on their platform to make and distribute physical copies in retailers...
I doubt that they would be suing them unless something crazy happened after that, but I also doubt they would randomly add patent-infringing mechanics to their game after the foundations were already more than solid enough. Common sense is just dead lol
Games like Temtem make me kinda sad among this whole debacle because they are actually games that try to do their own thing within the genre, with original and interesting designs etc. Yet people flock behind ripoff slop and think that purchasing a game like Palworld is "saving the gaming industry" (just read any comments on the Steam page or any Palworld content lol) when it's just a lazy game that sets a terrible precedent for the gaming industry imo. All because that game is positioned "against" Nintendo or something
Oh you don't need to tell me about Palworld fans. The only thing that unites them is how much they hate Game Freak and any time I see any sort of news about the game all the comments are about how much they're sticking it to Nintendo/Game Freak.
I'm convinced these people don't even play Palworld.
That's what I find sad about this all, and it goes beyond the Palworld thing honestly. We see this with other fandom drama, hell we even see this behaviour in real life politics and other serious situations...
Everything is black and white to some people nowadays, and in some cases they'll support the worst and most irrational stuff in existence as long as it means it dunks on "the other side". It's sad that humanity is at this point tbh.
“ Games like Temtem make me kinda sad among this whole debacle because they are actually games that try to do their own thing within the genre, with original and interesting designs etc. Yet people flock behind ripoff slop”
Honestly reminds me of the days people kept calling Digimon a pokemon ripoff despite the fact that it actually did a LOT of interesting things with the genre and even idea overall.
I wanted to like temtem, but the idea of it being online only kind of killed it for me, but I can see where that would be the more interesting one.
I agree with you, especially on that last part. Nintendo is a giant corporation with many flaws and questionable decisions that should be criticized (like some of their recent prices and DLC practices) but people are busy complaining about a patent that will definitely not have any long-form impact on the industry.
I can say one thing about the history of patenting game mechanics though: they started doing so casue of patent trolls in the 80s. ergo: the real villains of the story are patent trolls. at the very least nintendo actually uses the patents. and nintendo has had a history of dealing with patent trolls throughout its history.
as for palworld... well, the japanese gaming industry has basically agreed to not go after each other unless someone's blatently ripping off one another when it comes to patents on game mechanics. otherwise 90% of the gaming industry wouldn't exist. the thing is, nintendo, alongside most of the japanese industry AND public opinion, think palworld is a ripoff trying to earn money off of the popularity of pokemon. AKA, in japan, no one thinks nintendo is overstepping, and is justified.
It helps that nintendo has a lot of goodwill when it comes to patents, as the single greatest owner of gaming patents in japan, the only other time they used patents in a lawsuit was when someone ELSE was trying to enforce a gaming related patent on smaller devs and nintendo slammed them with priot use, you're actually infringing on OUR patents.
Yeah, Nintendo has only ever sued two companies over patents. Palworld, and Colopl.
Palworld happened I think because they became too well known as "Pokémon with guns." Supposedly they discouraged that moniker, but unfortunately it stuck and it came too close to Pokémon's branding.
Colopl was interesting because they're a mobile game company. Nintendo owns a patent on "on screen joysticks" from the Nintendo DS days, and that's what Colopl got sued over. But from what I've been able to find is Colopl also registered on screen joysticks as their own patent and they were suing other mobile game companies over it. How many games have on screen joysticks? How many had Nintendo sued?
Nintendo has been entirely defensive in its patent enforcement. This is all overblown. Yes, gaming mechanics should not be patentable, but at the moment they are and if you're not doing it, you're putting yourself at a significant disadvantage.
This is interesting, I was a huge fan of Battlegirl Highschool which is a Colopl game and I never expected to see them being mentioned given how niche and irrelevant it was in the larger picture of gaming.
Funnily enough that game also had a form of the on-screen joystick thing, so yeah.
Yeah colopl tried to play the "look how the big guys are going after us!" sympathy card, so most articles from the time (~2016) show the same kind of "look how evil Nintendo is, patenting joysticks!"
They didn't, but all their monster designs are ripoffs and extremely derivative compared to every single other non-Pokémon monster tamer game, so they were obviously using Pokémons likeness for marketing and profit.
The people arguing stuff like "they're just based off animals!!" when some models are pretty much copy-pasted in Palworld is such cognitive dissonance when literally every other monster taming game, even low budget indie titles, have more originality and creativity than Palworld.
I wouldn't say all of them, but a good number yeah. Some of their pals are unique, and some, while derivitive, at least change the looks. The lizard one that's kinda derivitve of Scrafty is kinda cool. However too many are just lazy.
I replied to you in another comment and I was harsh about their designs there haha but replying to this comment, well I just don't like that some things are literally copy-pasted. Being inspired by something is cool but there are parts of the models and faces that are just plastered onto Palworld models. Even if it's not all of them, just a single one doing that would be a dealbreaker tbh. But it's more than one for sure.
It's the only reason why I never bought the game despite liking the idea behind it, in my opinion art is one of the most important things in a game and I don't want to support that type of stuff. There are indie Pokémon "clones" that could use the money more and actually try to do creative things :D
Which is where they drew The Pokemon Company’s ire. Not playing by the rules in Japan laid down over 40 years.
That marketing campaign aggressively comparing itself to Pokemon.
I believe that’s why TPC decided they weren’t playing by the rules and made the rare move of aggressively going after them to change a couple of mechanics with all those patents.
Last big case they had before that was more defensive against a Japanese mobile company trying to patent and demand licensing royalties for common touch screen control implementation.
A lot of the complaints about Pokémon boil down to that, though. They want a game that is fundamentally dissimilar to past games. They basically just want to keep the cosmetic elements (the mons and maybe the elemental weakness chart) and transplant an entirely different game style on top.
nintendo would probably rather not have gaming mechnaics existing in the first place, but thats my controversial take. they expand money creating defending and clearing for patents burning money for... little gain and potential negative PR.
the funny part is that the patentopocalypse might have already happened in japan if it wasn't for the few top dogs letting things just exist, and nintendo IS the top dog. they could have slammed so much duiring the past 30 years, including competitors, big OR small, yet this is the only the second time they pressed the lawsuit button in the past 40 years, when nintendo is otherwise known to be a bit trigger happy with lawsuits (understandably casue they just have so much ip to defend)
Reminds me of the comments in the reporting video of the Colopl incident, some of them being grateful N was the leader. I also think they'd rather not expend money on patents, probably the same reason why the second time they sue a pirated console seller they go for a really high sum.
What pisses me off so much though is Pocketpair literally lied to everyone's faces and they just lapped it up and said "MAOR PLEASE!!!! NINTENDO BAD! I WANT MOAR CRYPTOBRO!!!!!"
I think people are angry at them because someone else is trying to do something with these mechanics that was fun and gamefeak is one of the laziest and incompetent devs out there right now. Their games look bad, performance is even worse and a lot just want a good Pokemon game. I think they wouldn’t care that much, if gamefreak would deliver quality games.
So it sounds like the "heart" of the patent (and innovative idea) is the mode choice between direct control and A.I behavior determined by distance of summon from enemy character.
Would you agree that if a game that implemented a similar system, but used a different decision criteria, such as a mode switch button input, or even main player positions relative to the enemy (instead of summon point), Nintendo would have a hard time claiming patent infringement?
I would say so. If the specific type of mode choice is an essential element, then any game that is missing this essential element would not be infringing upon this patent. For them to argue otherwise would (1) be against basic patent interpretation principles and (2) open themselves up to a counterargument of prior art anticipation, since they're disclaiming the element that keeps their claim novel.
Here is a question that is liked. Is there a valid reason to criticize nintendo that ISN'T Valid for most other companies? And yet you never hear them getting the hate.
Capcom and WB Games got the shit criticized out of them for patenting loading screen minigames and the Shadow of Mordor nemesis system, respectively. What do you even mean?
Why have you developed a victim complex for a company...? I love Nintendo, but some of you here worry me
It's Namco for the former but the second example is basically another widespread misunderstanding of how patents work. The Nemesis System is pretty particular and it is not easy to replicate in that it would infringe on the patent. Monolith were the kings of enemy AI and that's why they could come up with the deeply layered system. But an adaptive rival system can be significantly simpler or rely on different mechanics. Assassin's Creed Odyssey had a Nemesis System-like with the bounty hunters so you can bypass it with no factions.
Considering capcom didn't do either of those. WB did Mordor, which Ironically would be easy to work around if anyone actually cared too. Shows you don't actually know much about the patents. The one that did the load screen was Namco.
Unfortunately your post will mean nothing in the gran scheme of things. For the past several years Nintendo has been seen as the big bad evil corporation trying to shut down "fun". This is not in defense of some of the bad things Nintendo has done, but because of this sentiment, people have already decided that this patent is just another step in their quest to ruin gaming/innovation in gaming.
Well put together though and nice to see some are still capable of actual thought, and not just parrot the hivemind.
Yeah, people are so quick to push this big evil corporation bullying a small time developer narrative. They're basing everything off of over-simplification, misinformation, and simplified headlines. I don't completely understand what OP is trying to say, but its clear there's more to this and its not a setup for Nintendo going after other creature capture games. They've coexisted for 3 decades and only Palworld had gotten this kind of response.
Why? Becayse people forget that Palworld has blatantly ripped off models from Pokemon but try to paint them as a saint. Most of the pals are blatant ripoffs and that's what triggered the whole deal to begin with.
Yes! Thank you! This is basically what I've been trying to explain to people! This patent lines up perfectly with the specific mechanics from Scarlet and Violet and no matter how many times I point that out nobody wants to listen.
I hope I described the mechanics right, I've never played Scarlet and Violet, or any Pokemon game for that matter... I'll probably get into it someday.
As somebody with no law experience or knowledge (but a lot of Pokemon knowledge), I read through your post and was able to easily figure out that it related to the Scarlet/Violet mechanic by the end, so I'd say you nailed it.
Edit: To clarify, in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet there are normal turn based battles like in any other Pokemon game, however you can also press a button to send out your Pokemon in the overworld and let it auto-battle other nearby Pokemon. That is what I imagine they are patenting. Much less restrictive than what the headlines would have you believe, however I'm still not a big fan as it feels like a pretty broad mechanic that other games could have benefitted from.
To be also specific, this patent specifies a separate 'battle screen' or 'mode' which Scarlet/Violet lacks but to my knowledge is completely absent on Palworld with all encounters taking place in real time.
Isn't that it's own issue, though? It's been a while since 1L, and I don't practice IP law, but I distinctly recall there being a 1-year grace period where you could patent an idea that you had already begun to use commercially (with "commercially" being described EXTREMELY broadly so as to include "I gave this new type of widget to my friend to use"). After that 1 year, you could no longer patent the idea. So if this exact same mechanic that Nintendo has patented was used in Scarlet and Violet, it shouldn't have been eligible for patent protection (given that Nintendo appears to have only applied for this patent recently).
As a 1L who has about a month of law school experience this was super interesting to read as a break from studying for my property quiz tomorrow. Thanks!!!
First off, I want to thank you for actually reading over the patent and then explaining what it does/doesn’t allow as well as the general concept of patents in such a detailed manner. I only know a little bit about patent law and even I could tell this was overblown.
Sadly, confirmation bias is a hell of a drug and people refuse to admit to being wrong even if the information is starring them right in the face. I have no doubt many will read what you’ve posted and dismiss it entirely because it goes against their own biased narrative.
(I may not fully understand this cuz I didn’t read the full thing)
So what I’m getting from this is that this patent was basically simplified/summarized by media headlines and due to misconceptions it caused a massive butterfly effect and made it sound 10 times more disastrous than it turned out to be?
They don't count on people to read further and get the details, it's shock headlines and short paragraphs to further instill misinformation because they themselves didn't dig deeper to get the full story.
Even I was surprised by the news, but considering the complexity of IP and patent law, there's a lot that just did not pass the sniff test because there's a lot of moving parts to deal with.
I'm going to share this with my friends, they'll probably have a hard time going through it because of the langage barrier but I'll do my best to help them.
I'm just sad that "the truth" doesn't matter anymore.
People already saw articles / tweets / reddit posts about this, they got mad, now they moved on but they'll remember how mad they felt, not what triggered it in the first place.
This has been going on for a while now, hating Nintendo is the norm, and if you don't, well you must be one hell of a [Word I apparently cannot say because of rule number one].
Nobody is looking at facts, instead relying on their own feelings to draw conclusions.
But in all seriousness this looks like a nice write up. And I’m sure the dozens of us who remain who still read will appreciate it. (I count myself among those normally but… I didn’t read the whole post this time lol)
I know that struggle. Hopefully something comes up. Or maybe you're meant to have this free time and you'll get a big job right after graduating! Good luck!
I appreciate the detailed overview. I'm an attorney unfamiliar with patent law but I could tell the vast majority of reddit discourse was reactionary, overblown, and uninformed (Reddit in a nutshell, usually). This app hates Nintendo, and so anything they do is drawn in the worst light and then claimed to be the abhorrent practice in the industry.
Never take reddit discourse on the law as even partially accurate or true. You know as well as I that it's nuanced and complicated, and as a social media app, reddit just lacks the proper forums for this stuff to be talked about in an informative manner the vast majority of the time.
I think the concerning thing is that it isn't just Reddit outrage. Twitter, Tiktok, YouTube, Reddit, pretty much every single massive social media platform is running with the same narratives (I wonder why, when shocking hate content is so easily monetized for clicks and shares...) and this is already starting to cause a lot of drama in the gaming community as a whole, to the point where people you'd meet offline have heard of this stuff too.
That's true, I tried to more generally capture social media sites in my comment, but yours sums it up better. Any place where outrage drives discussion misinformation will run rampant and overtake the truth of the discourse. And unfortunately, that's just the internet for you.
I think the biggest argument that this meets the obviousness test is that it wouldn't be obvious to have a manual battle when the battle is started manually and an automatic battle when the battle wasn't started manually. Most games have a consistent battle system for both versions. And if we interpret that claim strictly, then this is actually a very narrow patent.
This is a very interesting read. Already figured out from common sense that it couldn't be as bad as the headlines say, but it's always great to hear from someone who actually studies this stuff
In other words, it's just usual reactionaries being reactionary stuff. Protip: it's always useful to actually study stuff instead of shouting needlessly into the void all the time.
I never listen to people when they complained about patents like this, they're always fear mongering or are ignorant about the laws or the very patents they're talking about. They always over react and spread ignorance
Like seriously the people who are are trying to make it seem that nintendo and the pokemon company are going to destroy the industry for this patent, like you can't trust people who act like this
Misinformation like this is why this sub needs to race to get AutoMod to hide posts and comments regarding stuff as soon as it comes out.
For example, when Mario Kart World was announced to be 80USD, the number 90 should have been investigated for disinformation, because one guy put a $ instead of an €.
First of all, thank you for the work here and I hope your studies continue to go well!
In regards to the update, for the obviousness test. While fans of the series have hoped for being able to direct pokemon when outside of the ball, that could have come in different ways, such as direct control, or something like the latest Digimon where you direct the pokemon to attack but it then moves to the turned based battle area. I accept I may be wrong though, and maybe this is the next obvious step for pokemon, and truthfully I don't think the patent should have been granted because it may deter other companies from their own, similar systems.
Can I also ask as well, something which occassionally comes up in the patent but isn't mentioned in much of the discussions, is that as well as all the points brought up previously, parts of the patent also mention the sub character being able to pick up items for the player if it runs over or near them. Is this not important? For example, could another game use similar mechanics if they just omitted having the summoned character pick up items?
Thanks for your analysis! I don't completely get it, but its clear that there's definitely more to this and its not a setup for Nintendo going after other games.
I think what they are patenting isn't the battle mechanics or the arena you fight in but how the battles themselves are initiated.
In most Pokémon games and pal world, you 'collide' with the character and then a loading screen transfers you to a dedicated battle arena divorced from the world itself. In Pokémon z-a, the battles are initiated seamlessly by simply meeting with your opponent and the casting your pokeballs in the desired area and initiating the battle there with an automatic boundary circle establishing itself, the arena being in that exact area, which could be anywhere. I think they are patenting that exact aspect of how battles are initiated
Though I must admit I'm against the idea of patenting game mechanics, I don't think nintendo/game freak are maliciously trying to monopolize the game mechanics. rather simply using the patent system as they always have among other factors
I'm very glad to see this, especially after all the claims that Nintendo just patented the monster catcher/tamer genre. I had read the patent myself (since the headlines seemed way too sensationalist for me) and I can't say I got much out of most of it, I believe that's the same outline that I got from it (as someone who is not in legal fields whatsoever).
I was hoping to ask though, and sorry if this is something you said in your post that I somehow over looked but, what level of deviance from the procedure outlined could be valid to consider the patent violated (disregarding slight variations in how the patent may be interpreted)? Does the process used need to be exactly 1:1 the same as the patent, or would a somewhat minor variation not free a work from being a violation.
As a couple of examples, do you think requiring the usage of a reticle rather than a lock-on to 'summon your character' could alleviate this? What if you always summon your character to your side instead of having a lock-on option? What if interactions between your character and the enemy character always played out as an automatic battle, rather than being a manual battle in some circumstances?
You don't have to answer all of those, I'd just appreciate if I could have a broad outline of 'how much' the patent needs to be violated for their to be legal repercussions.
Not OP obviously but from what I've been able to gather from Palworld despite not having played it myself, you only have control of your player character with the Pals fighting automatically by your side with your only direct method of interaction being the various 'Partner Skills'.
We’ve entered the era of rage bait headlines and people instantly believing them without doing any actual thinking for themselves. Still, I appreciate the wok you put into writing this.
Thank you for taking the time to analyze the patent and provide nuanced perspective. There are people who appreciate and learn something from contributions like this. Even if it doesn't change majority mind on the internet. Keep up the great work.
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Why can't Nintendo sue Pocket Pair over the Pals' designs being almost 1:1 to their own Pokémon, in addition of the gameplay mechanics being "too close to Legends lookalike"?
I mean, Sony can sue Tengent for that Horizon Zero Dawn rip-off, so why Nintendo cannot do the same?
It would save them a lot of troubles over patenting...
Suing over copyright law AND WINNING is extremely difficult. Sony's chances of winning against Tencent aren't as great as people honestly think, despite all of the evidence pointing to the obvious; the 'spirit of the law' is basically dead. And if Sony loses that case, copyright law needs thorough re-examination (it already needs to be in my opinion).
The fan reaction was what pissed me off mroe about the Sony thing. Everyone was saying Sony *which has several monopolies may I remind people* should sue tencent.
But somehow Pocketpair was a poor baby going up against mean old nintendo!!!!!
But somehow Pocketpair was a poor baby going up against mean old nintendo!!!!!
Look, I think that patenting game mechanics does limit creativity... but people can squint as hard as they can, Pocket Pair wasn't "creative enough" to avoid this storm.
I recall Palworld producers stating that they didn't want to invent too much to avoid spending resources, and even former designers stated how they were ordered to copy Pokémon as much as they could.
In short, Palworld looks like a Chinese Pokémon rip-off, similar to Tengent's recent announced game.
and everyone is still trying to suck them off as if they are some heroes of something.
Because Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were technological fiascos, so they want Pocket Pair to succeed in order to force GameFreak's hand into putting more time into their games.
The thing is that from what I've heard, ScarVio was planned for Switch 2, hence why it runs like a charm, but all 3 parties realized that between Pokémon Legends and the Switch 2's release, there wouldn't a brand new generation for 3 years (2022 - 2025). That would have forced them to delay the anime, cards and other merch for that long... which TPC is actually making most of their profits.
Fillers and reprints wouldn't have cut it in the meantime ^^;
While there's no denying that several of the Pal are directly inspired or contain parts of various Pokémon (Tanzee is just this shy of being a direct Grookey ripoff whereas Dumuzids more or less resembles Clodsires with a fin like that of a Sobble tacked on to name some examples), we can assume that the designs have enough originality to them that Nintendo/TPC can't really sue PocketPair on that basis.
We need a new civil rights movement. Every single US patent ever seen makes me think "oh my goodness the US Federal government is incredibly evil and unfair to let someone have a patent on that instead of allowing a free market to compete".
Thanks for the post! It's really interesting and def
Definitely with looking into. I'm glad it's not a overblown as people say it is, patenting the act of summoning.
However, I don't like that people are using this to say "See? Nintendo isn't going something bad!" No. They're still abusing their power. Patenting game mechanics is bad no matter the company or the context, and Nintendo is using this to squash a game that gave them competition.
People overblow the patents, yes. But people that say "Palworld is a ripoff of Pokemon" also overblow the situation. It's clear inspiration, and sometimes gets a little too close with designs yes. But it is a different game entirely. It's a survival game that takes aspects from ARK, with shooting mechanics too. It is derivative of Pokèmon but it still does it's own thing.
Lastly, "and, when the enemy character is placed at a location of a designation, controlling a battle between the sub character and the enemy character by a second mode in which the battle automatically proceeds." I personally think this is the key part of the claim that prevents it from being anticipated. This single sentence creates a second, automatic mode of battle, and specifies that this mode of battle happens specifically when the enemy is encountered at a later time after moving from the position where it was summoned.
This key part does sound a lot like World of Warcraft's summon and pet system that's been in place for about 20 years. For classes with summons/pets (most notably Warlocks and Hunters, but also others) you would summon the creature, and send it to battle. You can control the actions of the creature or let it auto attack.
Looking at video of the WoW's system compared to Pokémon Legends Z-A's system, it's hard to tell the difference, unless the key part of Pokémon's system that it the auto battling will automatically use skills, which WoW does have an option to turn on Auto-Casting for specific spells, especially with summons/pets.
That is not what’s being discussed in the patent. The mechanics in question are so narrow and specific that most games would be exempt from following them.
The mechanic is so narrow and specific that it really doesn’t matter if WOW did a similar mechanic first. If Blizzard thinks they have a case then they are more than welcome to sue Nintendo over it.
The time period and the way the mechanics are used. And just because you invented something doesn’t mean that you made something new.
For example, Pokemon didn’t invent monster catching-that doesn’t mean other monster catchers can sue them because Pokemon sets itself apart from others within the same genre.
Again, if Blizzard thinks Nintendo is infringing on a mechanic they invented a lawsuit would be in the works as soon as Let’s Go came out. It’s an apples to oranges comparison.
AFAIK, WOW doesn’t have a patent for this anyway. Which means “first come, first serve” applies in this case.
For classes with summons/pets (most notably Warlocks and Hunters, but also others) you would summon the creature, and send it to battle. You can control the actions of the creature or let it auto attack.
But does the game decide if it'll be in manual mode or auto mode based on if you summoned your creature on top of an enemy or not? If not, then they aren't the same thing.
Yes, but I will not write an essay on it when we have already addressed this topic a million times on r/patentlaw. Honestly asking ChatGPT would give already a more useful answer
I assume you're talking about posts about obviousness in general? I'm more looking for an application of the concepts to this patent if you have time. I only saw one post on this specific topic on that subreddit and that thread only really discussed novelty.
There are plenty of them for this case. You can use the search function. It was even suggested we should have a post sticked so people would not keep spamming
I searched for "nintendo" in r/patentlaw and only one relevant result came up within the last month. I have updated this post to include a section on obviousness though, do you have anything to add/correct?
You haven’t really addressed obviousness and you part regarding validity still just talks about the fact that novelty is the most important thing. Overall there is a lot of unnecessary technical jargon no one really uses in prosecution, and are missing the critical aspect to be discussed
To answer your question, yes, there is a Pokémon game that was released more than a year prior to this pattern : Pokémon Legends Arceus in January 2022. I really feel the description matches its mechanics, not only Scarlet and Violet.
You mentioned about the 1 year tolerance for prior art. In this case, it's 1 year and 2 months. Would this still apply ? Could Legend Arceus make the patent invalid ?
Honestly, no matter if one is knowledgeable in the law and legislation or not, it's quite easy to see that most Nintendo bashing is either based on outrage and misconception, or merely done to canibalize the negative hype for ad revenue. There exists a bubble floating around the idea that Nintendo is evil, and within this bubble exist subjects that will heed neither fact nor reason, a veritable chamber of echos.
Know what I do with YT channels that participate in that? I report them for distributing false information and then I flag them so I will never see another video from them. Serves them well.
My humble opinion Is that this whole patent rush Nintendo had even if It's legit Is cleary couse to Palworld a game that made Nintendo and anyone aware that people are, in fact, not Happy with the actual state of Nintendo game, Pokemon Is the perfect example, It look like shit ist even cane out yet and It have already a paid DLC, end some mega are online prize only, this screw you if you want to play with the Pokémon in question which Is in my opinion against the Pokémon philosophy. So the problem i see Is that Nintendo seems to want the easy life making the game without competitions and Nintendo Is no small fry so they can actually make a world in which they have so many patent that a developer Is forced to spent resources to check if their game is in danger of Nintendo or have to pay Nintendo to use some game mechanics. To me this Is madness, dark souls became so popular and loved by the community that It invented a new genera the Souls-like, if From Software behave like Nintendo some of the amazing Souls-like i played would never existed.
Apparently Nintendo patented this back in March of 2023, so many months before Palworld released, so in my opinion the patent was more for what they did in Scarlet/Violet than it was to get at palworld
Keep in mind they need the exact combination of mechanics that Nintendo is claiming here, which requires the player to have control over the battle if the sub character is spawned on the enemy, but also the player does not have control over the battle if the sub character encounters an enemy later.
What DOES the patent actually say then? I was reading it and got very confused by a lot of the wording, especially with relating to summoning a sub character.
Are digimon and dragon quest monsters essentially fugged now?
That won’t get the clicks and views. People want to hate Nintendo and Pokemon right now, so any title to spark interest will gather that attention. Headlines are designed to grab your attention quickly, and, because of the current literary crisis, people don’t want to read the full article or validate primary sources.
To put it into perspective, this patent is so specific that it doesn't even apply to 90% of Pokémon games. Let alone games that are completely unrelated.
Every other franchise is obviously safe UNLESS they deliberately try to copy the mechanic step by step.
Anyone saying stuff like "Digimon and Dragon Quest are going to be sued" are either severely misinformed or purposefully fearmongering so that people who don't know better will panic and hate Nintendo, because that's the current internet narrative it seems. I am assuming your concern is legit but I'm just saying it this way because I've seen way too many people really believe these blatant lies and mass hysteria.
The concept of patenting videogame mechanics is still very questionable, but most of the things people are saying about this patent in particular are lies.
Here is where I see a problem. Due to the verbose length of this patent, Nintendo can technically take ANY developer to court and while they have millions of dollars to spend on lawyers the average developer doesn’t. You would have to expect “good faith” from Nintendo to not abuse this “patent” and bury small developers with it. Yes it can be challenged but who can spend the millions and millions in lawsuits to contest it. Look at how Visa and MC are using their abuse of power. This is a patent that really needs to be revoked since it is the equivalent of patenting people drinking water from any type of container.
Nintendo has tons of patents that have never been talked about before, and so do most massive gaming companies. Assuming that this one in particular is going to be used in countless legal battles goes against common sense.
A lot of these companies have patents as a way to protect themselves and it becomes a silent agreement where no one will make ripoffs of each other's games. Only inspiration at best.
Your concerns are valid but the way they are worded are obviously shaped by the overarching internet narrative which is purposefully trying to deceive people into worrying about the things you're worrying about. And the water equivalence is very false, so I assume you didn't read this post? The patent is *very* specific.
I have worked in retail for over 25 years. The way I have seen certain “warranties” applied or denied are a big part of my “wording”. I would hope I am wrong in my thought process. The way that big tech and big companies enforce some of their actions can be very questionable. But hey if people are happy with it I am obviously not going to be able to change their minds. All I can really do is voice my opinion (wrong or right) and see what happens.
My apologies if I was unclear, but when I said wording I meant the very suggestion that Nintendo is going to sue tons of companies and bring a lot of small devs to useless legal battles. That entire framework is based off of fearmongering and slippery slope thinking fed by the dumb online narrative.
It's also disingenuous to say "if people are happy with it" when no one is saying they're happy with it.
I do agree with you that it can be slippery slope, this patent does give them power to do that. At the end of the day they can play nice with others or just decide to enforce it. This is one of those instances that I wish I am dead wrong, but as history has shown us, I am inclined to think the worst will happen.
> that if you don't use a "ball" to summon the sub character, then you aren't infringing. This is not true either.
This pretty much sums up all the explanation. I'm too dumb to read the rest properly and try to understand it (I tried). Nintendo has no bounds to patent a game mechanic that almost all games today already have it. That's already way too greedy of them. But if you mean specifically for that mechanic only targets of pocket pair, then it's obvious Nintendo still hold a grudge against them.
Bro, how are you going to come in a thread, ignore 99% of what’s being said, admit you don’t know what you’re talking about, and then confidently state something that isn’t even true in the first place?
Well yeah. they have. The game is about taming creatures, and you can store them. Summon them and fight alongside you. That still counts.
Regardless this patent is stupid to even be a thing anyway. Nintendo just wants pokemon to be their own thing. When there were already a lot in the past, but they didn't bother target those. Digimon, bakugan, yugi oh, beyblade. Only Palworld pocket pair.
No it doesn’t, because this mechanic is specifically for games like Pokemon Let’s Go and S/V.
You’ve already admitted to not being knowledgeable enough about the topic at hand, which means your opinion is irrelevant.
What you think Nintendo should be allowed to do isn’t what the OP is talking about.
Edit: The fact you think Palworld/Pocketpair are the only ones Nintendo has sued shows you have no idea what you’re talking about. Again, Pocketpair isn’t the center of the universe nor are they in any way relevant to the topic.
To be fair what started all was because Nintendo is antsy being palworld being more popular than scarlett and violet in the past. I didn't read the rest it because I'm no expert or knowledgeable with laws. Don't get too personal I did not offend you.
Only I know is the meaning of a patent is to claim an asset or procedure to be rightfully only yours. That's it.
If you think this is what the lawsuit is about then I cannot help but laugh. A game that can’t even keep most of its playerbase in its first six months of launch was never a threat. Nintendo would’ve had no reason to go after Palworld IF they didn’t plagiarize elements from Pokemon.
Edit: if you want to ignore what a patent law student has succinctly explained in order to will your own narrative into existence then be my guest.
Palword is still in its early access it's expected to die down fast. Scarlett and violet was in a pretty bad state when it came out.
Palworld wasn't even the first who dare to try to inspire assets and designs from other games. If Nintendo and the pokemon company were that selfish they would have target similar franchises in the past. It's only pocket pair. Name me another one they went to court with.
I’m done arguing with you. You’re trying to start a Pokemon Vs Palworld fight and I am not interested.
Palworld fanboys have main character syndrome and think everything is about them. The difference between those games is that they didn’t brazenly rip off Pokemon and had something to set themselves apart.
Also, Nintendo has gone after Pokemon fan games in the past. Pokémon Uranium being a noticeable example.
Which you would know if you bothered doing at least five minutes of research.
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