Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, co-owners of Pokémon, have announced their intentions to sue Pocketpair Inc. in Tokyo District Court for patent infringement related to their game Palworld.
The joint letter from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company stated they were seeking compensation for what they called ” the infringement of multiple patent rights.”
Palworld released in January of this year and is in the conversation for indie game of the year at the Game Awards. Players noticed that the creatures in Palworld did bear a resemblance to the style of Pokémon, but the game did not copy any actual Pokémon and use it in their games.
The Pokémon Company holds 56 patents in the United States, although neither they nor Nintendo indicated whether they would take legal action in North America.
Update 9/19: Palworld developers respond to lawsuit
On the game’s official English Twitter page, the developers of Palworld responded to the news of the impending lawsuit against them.
The statement said the team was “unaware of the specific patents” Nintendo and The Pokémon Company claim they infringed, nor had the team been told what those patents were.
Pocketpair also told fans that the suit would not stop them from working on Palworld, although they admitted that they would be “forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development” as a result of the legal action.
GAME WRECKS 
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