After Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced that a patent lawsuit had been filed against Palworld developer Pocketpair, Nintendo has now released a statement responding to the complaint.
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s lawsuit states that Palworld “infringes multiple patent rights,” but Pocketpair has stated that it is “not aware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing.”
It goes on to thank the overall response to Palworld and state that the company will “do its utmost for our fans and ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.”
Yesterday a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement.
We have been notified of this lawsuit and will initiate appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.
At this time, we are not aware of the specific patents that we are accused of infringing, nor have we been made aware of such details.
Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to make 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 overwhelmed by the great response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue to improve Palworld and strive to make a game that our fans can be proud of.
It is truly unfortunate that this lawsuit forces us to spend a lot of time on things that have nothing to do with game development. However, we will do our utmost for our fans and ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.
We apologize to our fans and supporters for the concern and inconvenience this news has caused.
As always, we would like to thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming weeks and possibly months. Nintendo is particularly strict when it comes to protecting its intellectual property, so we can imagine that it has legitimate reasons to file a lawsuit against Pocketpair. Either way, the announcement has not gone down well with some Palworld fans.
Many expressed their anger and disappointment at the news on social media, saying, “If they’re after you, you’re doing something right” and “Nintendo really needs to humble themselves, because competition is healthy for everyone involved.”
