Palworld studio Pocketpair has outlined the terms of Nintendo's patent infringement lawsuit against its game, and it looks like there are three patents Nintendo is basing its attack on.
According to a post on the official Pocketpair website, Nintendo is seeking "an injunction against Palworld", as well as five million yen payments to both The Pokemon Company and Nintendo itself, in addition to "late payment damages".
The patents Nintendo is accusing Pocketpair of infringing were all apparently filed (or at least published) after Palworld was released, and they're all related to various functions within videogames, including one that pertains to a method of throwing an object in order to capture a creature.
The injunction Nintendo is seeking against Palworld would presumably involve the game no longer being available to buy in Japan, although since this is a Japanese lawsuit, it's not likely Nintendo could block Pocketpair from selling the game elsewhere.
Just in case you're not familiar with this Palworld lawsuit, it was filed against Pocketpair back in September, with Nintendo alleging that the Japanese studio had infringed on its patents.
Initially, it seemed like the lawsuit might block the release of the game on PS5 in Japan, but Pocketpair went ahead and launched Palworld on PS5 in early October, just in time for several new Halloween skins to arrive.
Since the patents in question were approved after the launch of Palworld, Nintendo's legal action seems a touch opportunistic to me, but then Nintendo has a pretty rich history of aggressively pursuing legal claims (especially where its IP is concerned), so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.
As for Palworld itself, it's an open-world creature-collecting survival game that blends the gotta-catch-'em-all aspect of Pokemon with the gameplay of games like Ark: Survival Evolved.
You'll fend for yourself in a hostile world filled with Pals, creatures you can befriend (or enslave) as you see fit, and you'll need to build bases, fend off attacks from aggressive Pals, and generally carve out a life for yourself.
Palworld is available right now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox. A mobile adaptation of the game is also apparently in development at PUBG studio Krafton. We'll bring you more as soon as we get it.
