When Palworld launched, its similarities to Pokémon didn’t go unnoticed, leading to Nintendo suing Pocketpair for allegedly copying Pokémon’s patents. The lawsuit has dragged on, but now Nintendo has made a surprising update to one of its patents, which has legal experts scratching their heads.
To recap, Nintendo’s lawsuit accuses Pocketpair of infringing on various patents, visual styles, and gameplay ideas, two of which focus on capturing creatures and smoothly switching mounts or rideable characters. The latter patent, which pertains to switching from horseback to flying creatures, has been quietly tweaked.
A few months ago, Nintendo requested to modify one of its patents and this change was recently approved and published. It’s a minor adjustment, but with a peculiar twist that even legal professionals find unusual.
The main difference is the addition of the phrase “even when” in the patent’s wording. Such phrasing is unusual in legal documents, which is why it stands out.
Here’s the excerpt Nintendo changed:
“and even when any boarding character other than the aerial boarding character able 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.”
Florian Mueller, a patent litigation expert, shared his take on Gamesfray: “I’ve been following patent litigation for 15 years… and I’ve never seen ‘even when’ or ‘even if’ in a patent claim. It’s bizarre.”
Some on social media think this could be Nintendo starting to feel the heat from Pocketpair’s defense. One user tweeted, “Apparently Nintendo changed their Palworld Patent mid Lawsuit. I wonder if Nintendo starts to lose faith in their own Lawsuit.” Another added, “Nintendo is taking drastic measures in a patent infringement case against Palworld. Pocketpair has a stronger defense than Nintendo expected.”
Whether Nintendo’s move signals worry or just a fine-tuning of their legal approach is hard to say. But this patent change definitely shows Nintendo is paying close attention to the case’s details.
