dpThe Japan Patent Office has rejected Nintendo patent application 2024-031879 – a filing that sits structurally between two patents currently being asserted against Pocketpair in the Tokyo District Court – for lack of inventive step, citing prior art from games including ARK, Monster Hunter 4, Craftopia, Kantai Collection, and Pokémon GO itself, as reported by Techdirt.
Here’s the context: When Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed their Japanese patent infringement suit against Pocketpair – makers of Palworld – the industry widely expected a copyright or trademark action targeting the game’s creature designs. What arrived instead was a patent suit targeting specific gameplay mechanics: capturing creatures using a thrown object, and transitioning between riding creatures or items in an open-world setting. These are mechanics with obvious antecedents across decades of games, which is precisely what made the suit contentious from the start.
The rejected application, 2024-031879, is not a peripheral filing. According to Techdirt’s reporting, it descends from JP7505852 – one of the patents already granted and asserted in court – while a sibling branch, JP7545191, is also being wielded in the Tokyo District Court proceedings. The rejected application sits directly between those two granted patents in Nintendo’s “monster capture” family, making the JPO’s reasoning more than procedurally inconvenient for Nintendo’s case.
The logic the JPO applied to reject 2024-031879 – that the claimed mechanics lack inventive step in light of existing games – can be turned toward the two already-granted patents powering the lawsuit. If the office found that a structurally related application failed the originality bar, it raises a straightforward question about whether the granted siblings should have cleared it either. Pocketpair has also been actively building its prior-art case, patching out some of the disputed mechanics from Palworld while simultaneously submitting evidence of prior art from other games and mods to support patent invalidation arguments.
Honestly, the JPO’s rejection is the kind of development that matters not just for this specific case but for how the industry thinks about gameplay-mechanic patents going forward. The prior art cited – including Pokémon GO itself – makes Nintendo’s position look less like protecting genuine innovation and more like trying to retroactively fence off conventions the industry arrived at collectively. The “sibling-parent” structure of the patent family means this rejection doesn’t stay isolated; it becomes ammunition in validity challenges against the very patents driving the lawsuit. Nintendo is still in the fight, but each rejection tightens the space it has to maneuver.
It’s also worth noting the broader moment Nintendo is operating in. and the author hasn’t seen evidence that the Pokémon franchise is suddenly suffering a loss of revenue or worth. The business rationale for continuing the patent campaign may be harder to defend with each successive JPO action against Nintendo’s filings.
What remains unclear is whether Nintendo will attempt to amend the rejected application or pursue an administrative appeal of the JPO – Nintendo may attempt to amend the rejected application or appeal the decision. The JPO’s prior-art reasoning may be relevant to arguments against the two granted patents in live litigation; The third patent in the suit, reportedly already modified mid-litigation per earlier reporting, adds another variable to an increasingly complicated picture.
What to watch: Nintendo’s response at the JPO – whether it appeals, amends, or lets the rejection stand – will show what steps it plans to take in the patent family. and the prior art now on record makes those challenges more credible. The Palworld case has become something of an industry barometer for whether gameplay mechanics can be meaningfully patented; how it resolves will have reach well beyond either company involved.
Do you think the JPO’s rejection signals that Nintendo’s patent strategy was fundamentally flawed from the start, or is this just one procedural setback in a case that still has years to run? And if these patents are ultimately invalidated, what should that mean for how studios approach gameplay-mechanic IP going forward? Let us know your read in the comments.
