Palworld Dev Responds to Pokemon Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed by Nintendo

It took longer than most expected, but Nintendo and The Pokemon Company are taking the developers of Palworld, Pocketpair, to court over patent infringement. Pocketpair was quick to respond, and it’s choosing to focus on the positive.

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company are seeking an injunction against infringement and damages as part of the lawsuit that was filed in Tokyo District Court on September 18th. The day after Nintendo’s announcement, Pocketpair released one of its own, claiming to be unaware of the patents the other parties claimed they infringed upon. Read the full statement below:

“Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement.

We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.

At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details.

Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.

It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.

We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair.”

This lawsuit comes only shortly after The Pokemon Company announced victory over the companies that developed Pocket Monster Reissue, another RPG that featured a lot of elements made famous by the Pokemon games. So, with a win in their back pocket, the powers that be are now looking to take down what it claims to be another copycat. Only time will tell whether they’re going to celebrate another successful run through Victory Road, however.