Nintendo's New Anti-Palworld Pokemon Patent is Missing the…

In the wake of its ongoing lawsuit against Palworld, Nintendo sent a shock to the gaming world in the form of a new Pokemon patent. This document codifies the “summon a creature to battle enemies” gameplay loop intrinsic to Pokemon, essentially giving Nintendo ammunition to sue game studios who use these mechanics in the United States for patent infringement. While this was ostensibly done with Palworld in mind, this new patent could affect the entire industry.

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It is no surprise that Palworld found its way into Nintendo’s sights – after all, from the moment the game was revealed, it was called “Pokemon with guns.” However, while a copyright infringement lawsuit is one thing, patent infringement based on gameplay mechanics is another entirely. Nintendo is making a mountain out of a molehill with this particular move, especially when comparing the profits of the two IPs.

Palworld Was Never a Real Threat to Pokemon

How Pocketpair Drew Nintendo’s Wrath

As of July 2025, Pokemon has become the highest-grossing multimedia franchise of all time, surpassing the likes of Star Wars, Winnie the Pooh, and Mickey Mouse with over $113 billion made across nearly three decades. What’s more, according to numbers from 2024, Nintendo has sold nearly 500 million units of its various Pokemon games in that time, cementing it as the fourth best-selling video game franchise in history.

Mario: 957 million
Tetris: 520 million
Call of Duty: 500 million
Pokemon: 489 million

Palworld was also a huge success, with over 15 million copies sold in its first month, making it one of the best-selling PC games of all time. Indeed, with close to a half-billion dollars in profit, it was enough to draw aggro from Nintendo. Despite this, Palworld is in a completely different weight class than Pokemon.

Not only is it an indie game developed by a small studio, but Palworld is technically a different genre entirely. Though it has creature-collecting and battling mechanics, Palworld is actually an action adventure survival game – something Pokemon currently lacks. Palworld’s audience almost certainly crosses over with Pokemon, but it could never cut into Nintendo’s profits in a meaningful way.

Even so, there is merit to Nintendo’s lawsuit against Palworld. It is important for games to protect their intellectual properties – and from Palworld’s now-removed Pal Spheres to the striking resemblance between certain Pals and Pokemon, it is no exaggeration to say it took inspiration from Nintendo’s pocket monsters. That said, Nintendo suing for patent infringement, not copyright infringement, and piling even more patents on game mechanics seems like a reckless, wide swing that could cause some severe collateral damage.

The True Danger of Pokemon’s New Creature Battle Patent

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Nintendo's new U.S. Patent number 12,403,397 is full of legal jargon, but at its core, it protects the concept of a video game character summoning a creature to battle enemies, or follow the player until they find something to fight. This means Nintendo could pursue litigation against any game that includes all of these steps without licensing the process from them:

The game is stored on a computer or other console.
The character can move in a virtual space.
The character can cause “sub-characters” to appear.
If an enemy is present when the sub-character appears, the sub-character battles them.
If an enemy is not present, the sub-character automatically moves.
If the sub-character encounters an enemy, it will battle them.

While this patent could theoretically be used by Nintendo to go after AAA games like Diablo 4 or Final Fantasy, more realistically, this patent is a warning shot for smaller fish. Indie studios cannot afford to license the mechanics from Nintendo, or otherwise face court expenses. The threat of Nintendo’s patent could strangle an entire genre of games out of existence – and in doing so, earn the animosity of fans, who may think twice before buying the next generation of Pokemon games.

Nintendo nearly tried to patent jumping in games after Super Mario Bros., but Shigeru Miyamoto spoke out against it, saying it was “too cruel” to other developers.

Each new patent like this is a landmine to be avoided – and indie games will be the ones most affected. Hopefully, this dangerous trend stops before small developers are forced out of the industry by the actions of giants like Nintendo.

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