The Nintendo v. Pocketpair patent case

Timeline

1. 19 September 2024Nintendo and The Pokémon Company file suit against Pocketpair in the Tokyo District Court, alleging infringement of three Japanese patents covering monster capture, summoning and airborne mounting mechanics. They seek ¥5 million each plus late-payment interest — about $66,000 total — and an injunction.
2. 8 November 2024Pocketpair publicly identifies the three patents at issue and states it will contest the claims.
3. November 2025The plaintiffs narrow their claims to older, pre-patch versions of Palworld. The current game is no longer the target of the infringement claims.
4. March 2026A US patent examiner issues a non-final Office Action rejecting all 26 claims of Nintendo's US summoning patent as obvious over earlier patents — two of them Nintendo's own.
5. 10 July 2026Palworld leaves early access with its 1.0 release — a version the narrowed claims do not cover.
6. 1 October 2026Scheduled: presentation of evidence before the Tokyo District Court.
7. 9 November 2026Scheduled: the court is expected to deliver its opinion.

What the case is actually about

Not copyright, and not the creature designs. The claims are patent claims about gameplay mechanics: capturing a creature by throwing an object at it, summoning a creature into battle, and mounting a creature to travel — as methods, not as art. Damages sought are modest by litigation standards (about $66,000 plus interest); the consequential part was always the injunction request, and as of the date below no injunction has been granted. Palworld remains on sale on every platform it shipped on.

The paldb-native footnote: mechanics are the one thing this site can measure. Palworld changed how gliding and summoning work in patches during the case, and the change explorer now records every game-file change build over build — so if a future patch alters a contested mechanic, the diff will show exactly what moved, whatever the patch notes say.