US EditionNintendo's Patent on Summoning Fighting NPCs Is Being Reexamined
USPTO Director John A. Squires cited prior patents from Konami and Nintendo, raising new patentability questions amid ongoing Nintendo-Pocketpair legal dispute.
- On November 3, USPTO Director John A. Squires ordered reexamination of Patent No. '397, giving the office two months to investigate its legitimacy.
- Squires cited overlooked prior art and earlier patents, saying his office failed to consider Konami and Nintendo's 2002 and 2019 patents, prompting substantial new questions of patentability.
- The '397 patent describes a summoned sub character switching modes and claims controlling a player character to cause a sub character to appear, switching between manual and automatic battle modes.
- Analysts say the move weakens Nintendo's case as the reexamination undermines Nintendo's patent assertions in its lawsuit against Pocketpair's Palworld, while Pocketpair continues Palworld development.
- It is uncommon for a USPTO director to intervene directly; John A. Squires, USPTO Director , ordered the reexamination with decisions expected next year.
16 Articles
16 Articles
Nintendo's patent on summoning fighting NPCs is being reexamined
Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld just hit a snag. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has ordered a reexamination of a key Nintendo patent expected to be wielded in the case. Games Fray reports that the office is reviewing the Switch maker's patent regarding "summon subcharacter and let it fight in 1 of 2 modes." If we view Nintendo's Palworld lawsuit as a test bed for monopolizing game mechanics, the development can only be seen as a …
Nintendo’s Pokémon Patent Under Investigation by U.S. Government
The head of the U.S. Patent Office has issued an order to re-examine Nintendo’s controversial Pokémon patent. According to the government official, Nintendo’s combat summoning patent may not have been valid after all. Nintendo’s Pokémon Summoning Patent Under Review Screenshot: The Pokémon Company Back in September, the gaming industry was stunned when Nintendo was granted a patent by the U.S. government for “summoning a character in battle.” Th…
Nintendo's Palworld lawsuit suffers another potential blow as US takes "rare" step of re-examining previously granted Pokémon patent
Just weeks after Japan rejected Nintendo's initial efforts to patent a variety of Pokémon-style monster capture and throwing mechanics - a patent that might prove critical in the company's ongoing patent infringement lawsuit against Palworld - the US has taken the "rare" step of re-examining a previously granted Pokémon patent, believing it could be invalid.
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