Indeed, while we heaped praise on the game for its excellent interactive documentary and wide selection of games in our 7/10 review, we noted that the online functionality is simply not up to scratch at the moment. Additionally, an issue in which lowering the in-game difficulty setting doesn’t provide adequate respite for players struggling against the AI has also been acknowledged by developer Digital Eclipse.
The director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has ordered a reexamination of Nintendo’s controversial ‘summon character and let it fight’ Pokémon patent after it was heavily criticized by IP lawyers.
While the patent sums up how Pokémon games work in that you summon Pokémon to battle other Pokémon in the hope of adding them to your collection, there are countless other games that use similar mechanics, such as Persona, Digimon, and even Elden Ring, depending upon how the patent is interpreted.
At the time, IP expert Florian Mueller took to social media to say Nintendo “should never” have received a “summon character and let it fight” patent in the first place, while video game patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon told PC Gamer “these claims were in no way allowable.”
Now, Games Fray has reported that Donald Trump nominee John A. Squires, who only became director of the USPTO in September, has personally ordered a reexamination after he “determined that substantial new questions of patentability have arisen” to certain claims made by the patent.
Here’s Squires’ description of the claims in question:
“The ‘397 patent issued with claims drawn to controlling the movement of a player character in a field of a virtual space, causing a sub character to appear in the field, controlling a battle in a manual mode when an enemy character is present in the location the sub character has appeared, and when an enemy character is not present in the location the sub character has appeared, automatically moving the sub character, and controlling a battle in an automatic mode when an enemy character is placed at a designated location.”
In his order, Squires pointed to two older U.S. patent applications — one filed by Konami in 2002, the other by Nintendo itself in 2019 — as “prior art” references. Both, Squires said, would be “important in deciding whether the claims are patentable,” and each “raises a substantial new question of patentability.”
Mueller, writing for Games Fray, said Squires’ order was down to the “public outrage” at the award of the patent, and concerns about the reputation of the U.S. patent system as a whole. While this reexamination isn’t a revocation order, Mueller insisted it is now “highly likely” that the USPTO will revoke Nintendo’s ‘397 patent. Nintendo has two months to respond.
What does this mean for Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s high-profile legal battle with Pocketpair over Palworld? Mueller said it “further undermines the credibility” of Nintendo’s patent assertions against Pocketpair’s game.
This is the latest legal blow for Nintendo in its battle against Palworld. Last month, one of the Nintendo patents related to its monster capture patents filed last year was rejected by the Japan Patent Office (JPO) for lacking originality. The office’s reasoning for the rejection made reference to older games with similar mechanics that were released even before 2021, including ARK (released in 2015), Monster Hunter 4 (2013), and Japanese browser game Kantai Collection (also 2013). Ironically, Pocketpair’s Craftopia (2020) and Niantic’s Pokémon Go (2016) were among other examples of games that were used to argue that the patent lacks originality.
The case involves three main patents granted by the JPO: two related to monster capture and release, and one related to riding characters. All three patents were filed in 2024, after Palworld came out. However, they are actually derived from earlier Nintendo patents dating from 2021. In other words, it seems that once Palworld came on the scene, Nintendo filed divisional patents that were geared to fight specifically against Palworld’s alleged infringement of the original patents.
Since then, Pocketpair has made changes to Palworld’s disputed mechanics. The November 2024 patch removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing Pokéball-like Pal Spheres (now Pals just materialize next to you when summoned). In May this year, another Palworld update changed how you can glide in the game — instead of directly grabbing onto Glider Pals, now you just simply use Pal-buffed Glider equipment. The case has rumbled on, with Nintendo even rewriting a mount-related patent mid-lawsuit, and arguing that mods should not count as prior art.
So what happens next? Mueller said there may not be any further developments this calendar year relating to Nintendo’s lawsuit against Pocketpair or patents that are related to it. But decisions are expected next year. All eyes will be on Presiding Judge Motoyuki Nakashima, who leads the patent division of the Tokyo District Court. “It is ever more likely that Nintendo will lose,” Mueller said.
At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March, IGN sat down for an extended conversation with John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager for Palworld developer Pocketpair. We spoke following his talk at the conference, ‘Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.’ During that talk, Buckley went into candid detail about a number of Palworld’s struggles, especially the accusations of it using generative AI (which Pocketpair has since debunked pretty soundly) and stealing Pokemon’s models for its own Pals (a claim that the person who originally made it has since retracted). He even commented a bit on Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit against the studio, saying it “came as a shock” to the studio and was “something that no one even considered.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Pillars of Eternity‘s much-anticipated turn-based mode debuts in PC open beta form on November 5th, with Obsidian seeking more input on their very nice tenth anniversary gift before rolling out a final version. That’s not to say the devs haven’t already been working to ensure “very reasonable criticisms” of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire‘s own turn-based mode, though, as outlined by director Josh Sawyer in the beta’s announcement video.
We’ve been positively itching to see the latest financial report from Nintendo, as we had expected the Switch to finally surpass the Nintendo DS and become the company’s best-selling console of all time.
Alas, that hasn’t quite happened yet. At 154.01 million units, the Switch is a mere 10,000 units away from the DS, and considering the data is only viable to the end of September 2025, it’s likely that the gap has already been closed in the couple of months following.
This pass (featuring some free unlocks) comes loaded with premium rewards including new EX Colours for Blanka and A.K.I., new titles, new challenger screen illustrations, sounds and effects, avatar gear, emotes, stickers, and perhaps most exciting of all, the classic game Ghouls ‘n Ghosts.
Last week, Nintendo surprised fans with the announcement Animal Crossing: New Horizons would be getting a 3.0 Update and Switch 2 Upgrade early next year.
To help pass the time, it’s now added the Nintendo 3DS soundtrack Animal Crossing: New Leaf to its Nintendo Music app. This album contains “all tracks” and as long as you have this app downloaded and an active Switch Online membership, you can listen to it right now.
Unfortunately, we are here yet again with another games studio that will seemingly be closing its doors for good. A couple of years ago, Greg Street, known for his work on World of Warcraft and League of Legends, set up Fantastic Pixel Castle. There, it was announced at the time, he would lead development on an MMO codenamed Ghost, with NetEase serving as publisher. Except in a LinkedIn post earlier today, Street shared that Fantastic Pixel Castle will be shutting down.
Friendslop games may come and go, but the (for all intents and purposes) progenitor of them all, Lethal Company is still the one I think of most. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s otherworldly, literally, there’s so much mystery to it that you just want to spend time in its world. But while it will likely go down as solo dev Zeekerss’ most notable work, he did just release a brand new horror game 10 years in the making. And in a recent interview, he spoke of how he got his start in horror, and the roots that make up his latest work.
We’re all waiting for the next mainline Persona game, but there’s a reason SEGA and Atlus have sat pretty with Persona 5 for so long: Because it just won’t stop selling.
The petition, which amassed just under 190,000 signatures prior to its closure in July, received a response from the UK government back in February, when it hit 10,000. “There are no plans to amend UK consumer law on disabling video games,” this reply read. “Those selling games must comply with existing requirements in consumer law and we will continue to monitor this issue.” As is the process, once it hit 100,000 signatures, it was eligible to be debated by parliament’s petitions committee.
