Remember back in January when The Pokémon Company said it planned to “investigate” monster-taming game Palworld for intellectual property rights infringement? Well, it looks like Pikachu and friends are officially filing a lawsuit against the game’s developer.
On September 18, the company and Nintendo released a joint statement on the publisher’s website announcing the lawsuit, saying it is seeking compensation for damages against Palworld developer Pocketpair on the grounds of patent infringement. Shortly after its January 2024 launch, Palworld skyrocketed in popularity while also raising eyebrows for its monster designs, which seemed nearly identical to those in Pokémon.
Nintendo and Pokémon’s full statement reads as follows:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (HQ: Kyoto, Minami-ku, Japan; Representative Director and President: Shuntaro Furukawa, “Nintendo” hereafter), together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc. (HQ: 2-10-2 Higashigotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, “Defendant” hereafter) on September 18, 2024.
This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.
Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.
Kotaku has reached out to Pocketpair for comment on the situation and will update this story should we hear back.
Despite the similarities in designs, some players believed that Palworld offered a better experience than many of the most recent Pokémon games. This followed years of growing discontent with games like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, which were plagued with technical troubles at launch. The similarities were a hot topic when the game launched, and fans were quick to mod the game with Pokémon characters, which was promptly DMCA’d. This all comes two months after Pocketpair partnered with Sony to create Palworld Entertainment, a company dedicated to expanding the franchise.
Update: 9/18/24, 10:23 p.m. ET: Nintendo released the following statement to Kotaku via email:
“We filed the lawsuit at this timing after careful investigation of the content that is the subject of this lawsuit. We will refrain from commenting on topics that relate to the content of the lawsuit.”