Context: Yesterday we discussed Pocketpair’s announcement of a Palworld update that changes a certain game mechanic (flying on non-player characters) and explained how this “fleeing Pokémon” type of moving-target strategy involving workarounds makes it impossible for Nintendo to obtain any (meaningful) remedies for patent infringement (May 10, 2025 games fray article). There are reasons to assume that Nintendo’s patents could be invalidated, in which case Pocketpair can bring back some of the game mechanics. The same applies if Nintendo fails to prove past infringement.
What’s new: A reader pointed us to a recorded YouTube stream of June 5, 2021. At the INDIE Live Expo, Pocketpair gave a preview of Palworld, which at the time was expected to be released the following year. That preview is conclusive evidence of Pocketpair having independently developed the functionality it now felt forced to modify as a result of Nintendo’s patent bullying. Nintendo’s original patent application on the smooth switching of riding objects was filed more than six months later (December 22, 2021), making it a possibility that Nintendo was inspired by Pocketpair, but it cannot have been the other way round. As we took another look at that original application, we found a clue as to why the latest Palworld change involves a glider object as a requirement for being able to fly.
Direct impact: The June 2021 video proves Pocketpair’s independent invention, which is, however, not a defense to patent infringement. It constitutes prior art, but it could not single-handedly invalidate Nintendo’s “smooth switching of riding objects” patent: the video shows what one sees on the screen, but not the user interface operations and inner workings that the patent discusses. The implementation is rather obvious though. Therefore, Nintendo’s claimed innovation was not inventive in light of that June 2021 video.
Wider ramifications: While the patent system plays a key role in incentivizing and protecting innovation, Nintendo’s patent assertions against Pocketpair look increasingly disingenuous.
Here’s the English (synchronized) version of the June 5, 2021 video, starting with the introduction of Pocketpair and an early preview of Palworld:
And the original Japanese version without synchronization:
One can clearly see the player character riding on horse-like objects on the ground, but also sitting on flying objects and gliding through the air:
In the first part of our “explain it to me like I’m five” series on this case, we explained how it was possible for Nintendo to file patent applications after the release of Palworld and then sue Pocketpair over those patents (January 23, 2025 games fray article). The shortest version to explain it is that what matters is not the date on which a patent application is filed, but the priority date. Those 2024 patent applications claimed back priority (as it is called in patent lingo) to a couple of patent applications Nintendo originally filed in Japan on December 22, 2021. That one does not claim back priority to anything earlier, so that’s the earliest date on which Nintendo can base any of its arguments.
December 22, 2021 is still more than six months after the June 5, 2021 video you can see above. Therefore, that video constitutes prior art. Anything published before the priority date of a patent application is old enough to be eligible as prior art.
There are two ways based on which prior art can be used to invalidate a patent:
- anticipation: the prior art renders the invention non-novel because it already revealed everything
- obviousness: no single piece of prior art is like a mirror image of the patent application that is being attacked, but one can combine two or more pieces of prior art, or combine prior art with common general knowledge (a concept that sounds broad but is applied rather narrowly)
Here, Nintendo can reasonably argue that the INDIE Expo video is not novelty-destroying for its patent application. The claims of the original patent application mention “operation inputs” and the June 2021 video shows on-screen footage, but not a player with a game controller. Also, the patent discusses the functions performed by various components such as a processor.
But, realistically, if one had shown that video to a game developer, even before Nintendo’s patent application became known, that developer would have known what to do. It would not have taken any inventive activity to simply provide a user interface where you give an “operation input” to board a character.
Therefore, Pocketpair can challenge Nintendo’s patent based on either the June 2021 video combined with common general knowledge or the June 2021 video combined with other prior art. Last month we listed the various prior art references after a Japanese lawyer went to the courthouse on our behalf to take a look at the record (April 18, 2025 games fray article).
It doesn’t feel right that Pocketpair has to replace a feature in May 2025 that it already demoed in June 2021 because of some patent applications Nintendo filed in 2024 based on a December 2021 original application. But Pocketpair has chosen to err on the side of caution. It’s not taking any chances. It wants to make sure Nintendo’s patent assertions will fail.
When we went back to the original (December 2021) patent application, we saw that Nintendo essentially described its claimed invention as progress over a feature called Pokémon Ride that it announced in 2017 for the Alola region of its virtual universe. That description was cited by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company as “non-patent document 1” in the original application:
As a prior art, there is a game in which a player character can ride an object and move in a virtual space (for example, see Non-Patent Document 1).
“Ride around the field with Pokemon Ride”, [online], 2017, Nintendo Co., Ltd., [searched on November 22, 2021], Internet <URL: https://www.pokemon.co.jp/ ex/usum/gamesystem/170922_04.html＞
Here’s what the related page of the Pokémon website says:
When you obtain the item “Ride Gear”, you can ride a “Ride Pokemon” and move freely around the field. Pokemon that you can ride do not become your Pokemon, but you can call them at any time to help you.
The way Pocketpair now describes the way gliding works in Palworld after the latest patch sounds similar to the above:
From this patch onward, gliding will be performed using a glider rather than with Pals. Pals in the player’s team will still provide passive buffs to gliding, but players will now need to have a glider in their inventory in order to glide.
Palworld’s “glider” appears to be the equivalent of the old Pokémon “Ride Gear.” And like the “Ride Pokémons” of 2017 that are just called to “help” the player, gliding pals now merely “provide passive buffs to gliding.”
Nintendo can’t allege that Pocketpair’s workaround infringes a patent that pointed to that kind of technique as “non-patent document 1” and then claimed to provide some further innovation in the form of a mechanism for boarding a riding (or flying) object.
Did Nintendo file the December 22, 2021 patent applications with a view to Palworld?
When Nintendo filed certain patent applications on December 22, 2021 based on which (by means of claiming back priority) it obtained the patents over which it is suing Pocketpair, Palworld has not yet been released. Therefore, Nintendo was not able to look at the game mechanics. It also couldn’t know how wildly successful Palworld would ultimately be.
It’s a safe assumption that Nintendo saw the June 5, 2021 Palworld sneak preview. People immediately reacted to it by comparing the abstract style of those characters to Pokémon. It’s quite possible that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company strategically decided in 2021 to file patent applications that could be used against Palworld.
At the game engine level, there’s nothing Nintendo can do. Pocketpair uses the Unreal Engine, and Nintendo has any number of reasons not to try to go against Epic Games, not even in terms of suing Epic Games by extension.
What Nintendo was trying instead was to monopolize game rules. That is not what the patent system is for. But it is the purpose for which Nintendo is (ab)using it now.