Pocketpair goes on to say that Palworld has been claimed to infringe on three patents held by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company and that part of the damage is required as compensation.

The first patent is one that most had guessed to be part of the case, as 7545191 refers to the process of capturing and befriending Pokemon, which Palworld apes with its Pal Spheres. The other two patents that are included in the lawsuit, 7493117 and 7528390 haven't been found and detailed just yet, but they're likely also mechanics in Pokemon games that are replicated in Palworld.

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[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 39 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Saw videos/articles online that this was the "end of gamedev" or whatever.

While patents for games are shit, theyve been around a long time and are hard to enforce. Palworld made it incredibly easy for one of the most ruthless companies to go after them. I expected they waited to see the final game before taking action, and until palworld made a ridiculous amount of money.

I've worked on Pokemon clones that are commercially available, and while they didn't sell as much as palworld, they took a bit more care designing around stuff

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

How tf does Coromon get away with it? I'd say that's waaaay more of a rip-off than Palworld. E: typo

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Coromon didn't get a huge media deal that could have the potential undermine the Pokemon franchise. Nintendo going after them would be just needless friction since patent lawsuits are hellish

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I also think location has to do with it. The dev team behind Coromon are in Europe while both Nintendo and the Palworld devs are in Japan.

From what I understand from a previous article, japanese patent laws can be quite strict.

[–] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What I always hear is that companies will send C&D letters to small ventures, because it creates precedence. Without that, a company loses the right to sue.

I wonder how true that actually is.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago

That's more trademark law, not patent or copyright. At least in the US, I don't know if Japan is different.

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago

Funny you mention THAT game.

Not that I have anyyy insider knowledge, but great care was taken to avoid very specific things. Also who knows, had coromon exploded in popularity, maybe Nintendo would have bothered.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 weeks ago

Probably just not big enough. Pokemon-like games are very common, palworld was just hugely successful and a lot of the media coverage for it was comparing it to Pokemon.

[–] _NetNomad@fedia.io -4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Coromon is only a ripoff in the same way that any scrolling platformer is a ripoff of Super Mario Bros. building off the basic chassis of existing games to make new ones is a practice as old as videogames itself and why genres exist. the difference is that Palworld is full to the brim with monsters that can be difficult to tell at a glance from existing Pokémon- look at this article's embedded image, that's just a Wooloo with horns on it's hind legs- whereas Coromon, Digimon, Dragon Quest Tamers, Yokoi Watch, Cassette Beasts, and anything else in the genre aren't ripoffs and are even available on Nintendo consoles

i know that's not the angle Nintendo is using in court, but it's certainly the reason why they're in court in the first place while ignoring the plethora of older games that would also clearly violate those patents

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I disagree. There are a number of Coromon creatures that also heavily resemble some pokemon. I mean, it's to be expected, there are only so many variations of creature designs before they begin being similar to each other, especially with how long Pokemon has been at it, having like 1000+ creatures now.

Anyway, Nintendo is a greedy shitbag of a company. I love many of their games, but they're the absolute worst when it comes to being extremely litigious and/or consumer friendly. I truly hope they lose this legal battle

[–] _NetNomad@fedia.io 2 points 2 weeks ago

do you have any examples? i can't think of any Coromon that resemble Pokemon aside from sharing a base animal, whereas a number of Pokemon look closer to specific Pals than they do to their own regional or gender variants