The Japanese patent office has cast some serious doubt on two of the three patents involved in Nintendo's Palworld lawsuit. These patents concern the monster-catching mechanics at the heart of the dispute with Pocketpair, and it seems officials have noticed that these gameplay systems appeared in titles like Ark, Monster Hunter, and Pocketpair's own Craftopia well before Nintendo tried to patent them.
As Florian Mueller writes on game industry legal blog Games Fray, a patent examiner at the Japan Patent Office recently rejected pending application number 2024-031879, which Mueller explains "is a sibling of one of those anti-Palworld 'monster capture' patents and the parent of another." This rejection is non-final, meaning Nintendo will have the choice of either abandoning the patent or modifying it to address the patent office's concerns.
