Game mechanic patents are such an unbelievable joke it’s hard to understand how any court could take them seriously. “Yes your honor. As you can see, we own the exclusive rights to the idea of throwing a ball at a creature in a video game.”
I’m always happy to remind everyone that your childhood didn’t have minigames during loading screens because it was a patented game mechanic!
That one really pisses me off. It’s such a good idea and would have been applicable to almost every game.
Without pokemon I would not come up with it though.
Wait, so the patents Nintendo is suing them for breaching were only filed… months after Palworld was already wildly successful?
Admittedly my understanding of patents is pretty rudimentary but I thought you had to apply before releasing the idea into the world.
If that was right the general concept of a container that you throw at a creature to capture it would be considered unpatentable after Pocket Monsters Red and Green released in February 1997. Of course they could trademark the specific markings of the pokeball but the general mechanic would be fair game.
There is a concept called prior art in patent law. Prior art is information about the invention that exists before filing, it can both help secure a patent as well as prevent someone filing a patent for someone else’s existing invention.
“In a 3D space” rules out Pokemon Red. Still bullshit, though.
I’m not sure “in a 3D space” qualifies as an “inventive step” these days.
It definitely feels like something a person with ordinary skill in the art to which the invention pertains could easily have made on the basis of an invention or inventions that are already known.
Oh absolutely, it’s asinine. But it does avoid Pokemon Red as prior art.
Japan is such a weird place that I wouldn’t be surprised if it works
No, they were initially applied for in 2021.
Palworld had trailers featuring gameplay in 2021. Besides that, there are lots of games where you throw an object to add a character to your party. Including another earlier game by PocketPair called Craftopia. World of Warcraft added “battle pets” where you can throw a cage to catch animals and add them to your battle pets roster to fight against other trainers in 2012.
to add on to this, the video is dated in june 2021, and the patent show in japan wasnt registered until december 2021, which means palworld was already well on the way prior to them actually submitting these patents.
all three of the patents listed in the article have a japanese patent registered on 12/22/21. Palworld appears to have working gameplay mechanics by june of 2021 as shown by their announcement trailer.
That’s not what this article says. Earliest application was March 5, 2024.
Palworld was released on Jan 18th, 2024, a month and a half beforehand.
Look at the actual patents, though. They list 2021 as the application date in Japan.
The patents being referred to by the article are not Japanese patents. Did you know Japan has its own court system?
Why are you lying? The article links to a google patents page, under the Japanese patents. There are US versions of these patents available to view, which the article didn’t link to.
JP7545191 is a japanese patent. You can click one of the little blue US buttons to see the American equivalent. The same is true of the other two patents in question
Yeah, and take a look at the dates in what you linked.
What do the dates in them have to do with you getting that basic piece of information wrong? If you have a point to make, make it.
Fuck Nintendo
That “Palworld vs Pokemon comparison” thing has to be a joke, right? “These two creatures look similar, so obviously one of them is a blatant ripoff” and “these two creatures don’t look similar, but obviously one of them is a blatant ripoff” lmao
Gonna buy another copy of Palworld just to spite Wesley Yin-Poole and Nintendo
I’m only a minor fan of Pokemon (in that I played them years ago and sometimes revisit an old one), and I’ve never played Palworld. I knew that it was accused of being similar with the catching critters and whatnot and always kinda scoffed at that idea too. But this article is the first time I’ve ever seen the designs side by side like that. Some of them are pretty egregious, imho.
Some of them are extremely similar, but there were over 3,000 existing Pokemon designs as of Palworld’s release. It would be a statistical wonder if none of them looked similar, especially when our criteria can be as loose as “fire fox” and “Anubis”
Where are you getting 3,000 from?
https://www.cbr.com/just-how-many-pokmon-are-there-really/
Between original Pokemon, shinies, regional versions, and weird upgrades like gigantamax or whatever
I mean, shinies are a palette swap, no? I don’t really know if I’d call that a different design.
Gonna buy another copy of Palworld just to spite Wesley Yin-Poole and Nintendo
doubt
I didn’t say I’d buy it right now lol
Nintendo doesn’t want competition
They signed a deal with Sony, too.
