The Japan Patent Office (JPO) issued a decision less than two weeks ago that seriously questions the validity of two of Nintendo's three Japanese patents involved in the lawsuit against Pocketpair. This concerns application No. 2024-031879, related to one of the "monster capture" patents. The application received a preliminary rejection because the office found nothing innovative in the mechanics.
The office cited games released before December 2021—Nintendo's priority date. Among them are: ARK from Studio Wildcard, Monster Hunter 4 from Capcom, Craftopia from Pocketpair, the browser game Kantai Collection, and Pokémon GO. This is the first time that patent experts have relied on real video games, not just patent documents and articles, which significantly complicates Nintendo's position.
Nintendo now faces a choice: abandon the application or try to convince the expert by amending the description of the mechanics. In case of a final rejection, an appeal to the High Intellectual Property Court is possible.
Although the office's rejection has almost no impact on the case against Palworld, it makes Nintendo's other arguments in court less convincing. In addition, Japanese judges usually respect the decisions of experts, which may also affect the further development of the case.