Uh Oh: Nintendo Just Landed A ‘Summoning’ And ‘Battling’ Patent
Nintendo's patent collection continues with one that seems to relate directly to Pokemon and Pikmin mechanics.
If only necromancy were real. They could summon and battle Gygax in court.
I don't know what went wrong that such a patent was granted. I absolutely loathe IP people.
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Shouldn't it be trivially easy to demonstrate "prior art" in this case, making the patent invalid? I guess that requires someone to get into a legal battle with Nintendo... but it's not like this is some niche mechanic. Surely there are other entertainment megacorps who are currently in violation of this "patent" and do have the resources to fight it in court.
Patent laws in Japan don't work the same way as they do in most of the world. And they can only enforce their patent on companies operating in Japan.
The whole Palworld situation was based on patents that Nintendo only applied for after Palworld was already released.
This patent was granted in the US.
In the US, yes. In Japan, it would appear such a concept does not exist.
They were granted the patent in the US in this case.
Indeed. The sources I've read seem to lay blame with games not usually patenting mechanics (which apparently is all patent officers look at for prior art, not other games), meaning it needs active challenging to be thrown out.
PocketPair is based in Japan, which is where the previous, more directly problematic patents have been filed mid-litigation. While there is clearly prior art for the US patent, it isn't quite as comically broad as the Japan ones, and since Japan doesn't seem to care about prior art, those remain the most concerning to me.
The patent office has long said they're unable to attract and retain the expertise needed to evaluate novelty in any given field, and so the courts are left to sort it out.
I wonder how could a government agency not have the funding it needs? s
My first instinct is Activision. They got Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Skylanders, and to a lesser extent Sekiro
Yeah, Activision was my first thought as well.
They'll ask Nintendo for use and they'll pay for it