Patenting is known to be flawed. Let’s not forget the 2001 “circular transportation facilitation device”. Someone-just to show the flaws-decided to patent a wheel, while someone approved it :D
@@kaijuultimax9407Yes, "Patent Troll", someone who makes a shit ton of patents and does nothing with them just so nobody else can make similar things without paying out of the ass. Nintendo is well known to be a patent troll already, along side Microsoft and Sony - it's just, MS and Sony don't actually defend the game mechanic patents to such a degree. Because they understand its bad for the industry and creativity.
@@flabort its bad for their Reputation. It has absolutely nothing to do with q Quality of games. Especially the quality of their competitors' games. Why the heck would the company want others to succeed? Its not in it's interest.
I remember as a kid, I played those DBZ Budokai games that would have a lil button mash mini game during the loading screens. Vegeta does push-ups, Goku eats food, etc. I always wondered why other games didn't have stuff like that during loading screens. I figured it was because they just didn't want to or didn't think of it. Turns out, Bandai patented the mechanic so that only their games could have stuff like that.
Someone needs to put Nintendo, WB and Bandai Namco executives in cold storage for a while. Hot headed money grubbing shareholders need to cool off, smh man. I guess that goes for majority of big name shareholders tbh
Patenting video game mechanics is like patenting movie tropes. Imagine if Disney was just like, "I have patented the love triangle. No one else can put a love triangle in their movies ever again. Also, we now own the exclusive rights to the hero-to-villain/villain-to-hero character arcs. Suck it, everyone else."
Honestly, I'd be all for that. not because I want Disney to own our world even more but more so that writers have to try harder and make better stories rather than sticking to the same 3 tropes
There is a ray of hope here, as a few Japanese law professionals are saying that many of Nintendo's patents may be narrowed or even revoked entirely because of this lawsuit.
That's only if Pocketpair fights for long enough. If Nintendo puts enough financial pressure on through these legal shenanigans they may settle out of court without anything about Nintendo's patents being changed. I'm not a laywer but since this case started up I have looked into Japanese patent law to see how similar it is to US patent law. Lack of novelty is still a reason for patents to be rejected and for each patent people have found that is relevant to Palworld there has been prior art that would invalidate the patent. Not a one of these patents should have been granted, but Nintendo is going to be trying to drain the coffers of Pocket Pair by stalling in the courts as long as possible to prevent it from getting to the point where these could be overturned.
@@Eric-yd9dm With enough negative press pointing at nintendo for this I could see sony going out of their way to use this to try and gain some goodwill and stick it to an aggressive market competitor. It really depends on how much value they put on stepping on nintendo's toes and if anyone in a boardroom thinks to try to use this for a pr win.
Let's not forget that "Throw an object at a monster to capture it" is literally not even Game Freak's creation. They got it from Ultraseven in the 80's, and almost got sued for it and had to change the name of their game from "Capumon" to "Pokemon" in order to stop themselves from getting destroyed by a massive company.
Just reinforces the many phrases alluding to this kind of behavior... "Hurt people hurt people." "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." "The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors." So often, it seems, the levels to which people will attempt to mistreat others is directly proportional to the amount of power they have over others rather than any sense of morality or lived experiences. As much as people love an underdog, they seem to more firmly believe that "might makes right" when they are the mighty...
The problem is, like stated, they have enough capital to drag out a lawsuit to the point their opponents go bankrupt, regardless of how wrong Nintendo would be legally speaking.
The law system is flawed and Nintendo never failed probably becuz they pay to win it or got connections, i do hope palworld doesn't get too hurt by this
@@jongustavsson5874 tbf. for their studio size palworld actually made a absolutely insane amount of money they already sold enough to probably all quit their job and be fine. Like its not just any random small studio nintendo sues this time its one that made one of the most hyped games of modern gaming.
If I remember correctly, another Japanese gaming company Bandai Namco had a patent on "auxiliary games" until 2015, basicly minigames, during loading screens. Think about it for decades while we gamed we could have been playing a mini game while waiting for our game to load, Instead of having to stare at our screens for what sometimes could be a long ass time. I don't like it when big corporations use scummy tactics to actively make everything shittier for their benefit. Japan's court system seems like it quite often favours large corporations and the state. The conviction rate in Japanese criminal justice system is over 99%. With numbers like that something doesn't feel right.
Or how about WB and the Nemesis system? That is what they used in shadow of mordor and its sequel on the orc to make them interact with the player. How many cool game ideas could have come from this that we wont see because of them patenting it
Fun Fact: There's a "scam" that involves falsely accusing a foreigner of a crime and only releasing them from jail once they pay a bribe to a government official. Also, it's a staple for police officers to force confessions out of people. Great country that does a lot of things right, but some of the bad parts of the American system are quite emphasized for a country that's otherwise so advanced.
The worst part of that patent that no one talks about is the very real chilling effect it had on game development. Because it's been almost a decade since the patent expired and yet Bamco is still the only company that does loading screen minigames. The only good news is that with the evolution of technology, loading screens won't be around much longer anyways.
The only reason that it is accepted is that they are doing fun games. Their behaviour is utterly malicious and they are one of the worst anti consumer companies out there. They never release their games on other hardware than their own. They rarely discount their games They destroy their communities with lawsuits even if the community wants to just organize events Their hardware is barely enough to run their games and if you want to emulate it to actually have better performance the project will get a lawsuit - even if you need to buy the game to emulate it (the recent move against emulators is probably because they will release new console soon)
@@Ryanowning let's be real here. Large majority of the "nintendo buyers" buy their games / consoles cause they're fun and have absolutely 0 knowledge or care of what's going on with Palworld (or in general what Nintendo does in court). You think 5 angry people on reddit would cause any relevant monetary loss when Nintendo makes insane amounts of money off mainly kid products? Nah, and they know it. They know well enough that their bullying actions in court have no economic consequence.
The biggest problem is that the patent is so vaguely worded such that it applies to any object of any kind thrown by a player at an NPC/player; so this would also cover grenades (etc).
"There's no benefit to games, for doing this." It all really did just scream almost as a spiteful getback at Pocketpair for challenging and succeeding at a game that was just made out of passion and devs that wanted to make a fun game similar to Pokemon. Patenting mechanics is just greed and another card for companies to stay on top, it stifles creativity and is a horrible direction for games.
@@michaelstaggmick so you like monopolies? You like basically only one player dominating the market and in the process enshitifying the product in order to extract as much money as possible while delivering bellow the bare minimum they can get away with? Case release after release nintendo has with pokemon doing "it's ok cause it's pokemon, they will buy regardless", "oh the game runs like shit and has glitches that even indie studios manage to fix before launch? No biggie it's pokemon"
Reminds me of the Worlds 3d developer who owns the patent for "players interacting in an online 3d environment" or something else like that, something so vague it applies to literally every 3d multiplayer game in existence
You can invalidate a patent in court if you manage to prove it's too vague and wide-reaching, but it still costs money and time. Similarly, you can invalidate a patent if you can prove the patent's mechanic was not actually invented by the patent holder, i.e. was used in other products prior to theirs.
Nintendo filing a patent 2 years after a possible competitor already used the patented mechanic in question, then suing said competitor for patent infringement is about as scummy, underhanded, and suspicious as my manager passing me for promotion 6 times and then, once caught, claimed it was because of performance issues that were never discussed with me beforehand.
patents work retroactively. nintendo, if this went to court, would need to (and be able to) prove that this was a feature within their games well prior to palworld. moreover, they'd have an easy time demonstrating to the court that this isn't just some antiquated design they've been sitting on, but a regularly used design that palworld cloned i am not on nintendo's side either and hate ip laws - but i suspect nintendo would have an easy time winning (not that pocket pair would ever take this all the way to a courtroom anyway), and in any case, pocket pair was being too cavalier. it was a decision full of hubris and stupidity to release a game trading on the clout of clear visual pokemon vibes
I think a good way of getting the point across for "Should not be able to patent game mecchanics"... Is to compare it, simply, to other artforms. Imagine how many painters there would be if Picasso patented... The concept of a paintbrush. If Da Vinci patended oil based paints. If Rembrandt patented shapes on a canvas. If van gogh patented cloth canvases. That is what patenting a game mechanic is in gaming. It's patenting the very means of creating art. It's saying "No, you can't paint with a paint brush, I patented the paintbrush." And it's absolutely unacceptable.
Bad comparison because almost everyone knows about Anish Kapoor and his patented Vanta Black, a black so dark and so toxic that it looks like a void. Artists were furious that they would never get to own or use the material as Kapoor owns it for his own use only, forbidding anyone else from legally touching it. But then, Stuart Semple created Pinkest Pink and legally forbade Kapoor from purchasing or owning it, as well as anyone else from purchasing or owning it on his behalf. When Kapoor got his hands on Pinkest Pink and stuck his middle finger in it and posted the photo online. Unfortunately, Semple didn't sue because he's pretty poor compared to Kapoor. He did, however, make Black 2.0 and 3.0, as well as Diamond Dust (a paint filled with glass, so don't stick your finger in it!) and none are available to Kapoor for purchase, only literally everyone else. So, the lesson here is spite, I think. If someone rich stops you from doing something, smash your way around them and make them feel stupid and ashamed, then hit them back by disallowing them specifically from using your products. Reject patent; become Semple.
@@conspiracypanda1200 the problem with that is that the colors are a product not a mechanics within, the comparison to our scenario with palworld would be if any of the steps made to created the void black was patented thus no one could even use it again to create their own stuff
Possibly a better analogy than art would be medicine... as we can clearly see the difference in how non-patented medicine has helped the world compared to patented ones. For example, compare the polio vaccine to the smallpox vaccine. The polio vaccine was not patented, was invented in the 1950's, and rendered the disease nearly extinct within 30 years. The smallpox vaccine WAS patented, was invented in 1796, and the disease wasn't exterminated until 1980... nearly TWO HUNDRED years later. Coincidence? Another example is tuberculosis. There are both vaccines and cures for tuberculosis, all of which are patented. More people die from untreated tuberculosis than any other infectious disease. Those deaths are completely unnecessary... except that allowing 1.5 million unnecessary deaths each year protects the bottom line of several companies. I get that the world is filled with liars and cheats. I get that some people will steal just about anything for personal gain at the expense of the original creator. But patenting something in such a way that even the methods you used for its creation are legally barred from everybody is like killing your own cattle to prevent their theft. It is sad when it comes to art, it is stifling when it comes to games, it is immoral when it comes to medicine.
@@conspiracypanda1200 Patents also typically have an expiratiion - I think it's about 20 years? It's not to stop competition completely, it's to delay them. Thanks to this, you can now freely implement "ghost racer" or "mini game while waiting for load" mechanics into your game and not pay anyone anything. Licenses are a different beast - they don't expire, and are typically bought by business people, when companies approach their bancrupty, to ask people to pay up, should they infringe on them. Example would be take downs of anything that's straight up copy of a tetris.
@@conspiracypanda1200 That's a very different issue, Vantablack is a very specific material with a complex manufacturing process, that is what is patented, and it's very common. None of the outcry is about Surrey patenting their creation. The outcry is that Kapoor got an *exclusive license* in the field of arts, so no other artist can license VB for their own pieces.
@@NanakiPL HA! You activated my trap card! I use hand movement for no monetary gain and for informational purposes! I’ll sue you… to donate to charity!
As a Melee player, Nintendo is an absolute monster even when there isn't money involved. I've never seen such jealous behavior from such a high standing organization, it's unreal how it feels like petty high school drama sometimes.
The Nemesis system always comes up in this context and for good reason. That's something that could be used to make sooo many cool and interesting games, but only one publisher can do it now. Imagine the cool stuff that the indie or AA community could have done with that concept that we will never get to experience now
You can build a similar system if you work around the wording. Note the patent explicitly says enemies and nemisis system. Okay well I have the rememberance ai system and it randomly generates every object in the game. The files of the game store encounters with other objects and objects related to these encounters can access this file to iterate on previous encounters. It's all in wording.
This isn’t the only patent btw, we don’t know the specific patents sued on yet but it’s theorized about this among others like the mounting of animals and being able to land and dismount. Nintendo also owns seeing a silhouette of your PC when obscured from vision btw. Palworld Entertainment or whatever might be helpful in this lawsuit. Sony Music and Aniplex (both Sony) may ensure it doesn’t come to a “running out of money” situation. But yea this is terrible for all. And even if it’s Japanese court, it will still deter small devs from risking trying mechanics like this worldwide because they’ll be afraid to get sued. Small studios can’t pay a patent attorney to shift through thousands if not hundreds of thousands of patents before doing anything. TPC/Nintendo are patent trolls and gross.
If Nintendo wins it means that anyone can use derivative patents to backdate enforceable dates. Do you have any idea the level of chaos that would cause? Anybody with any patent and holdings in Japan could just change their previous patents to whatever they like and sue others over patent infringement. The Japanese economy would collapse because all business would be a massive legal risk. Nintendo is screwed here.
The Nemesis System in the Shadow of Mordor/War games. Patented & then never utilized by WB or any other game studios. The closest thing we got was the Hunt system in the later RPG Assassin's Creed which was half baked to avoid lawsuit & Watch_Dogs: Legion which admittedly does something interesting with the nemesis system by having it that you recruit the characters rather than fight them, However it's a Ubisoft game so the overall quality was pretty blurry.
That one specifically infuriates me because it could have been *revolutionary* if people were actually allowed to use and refine it into a standard feature.
@@Xelnagapriest I completely refuse to engage with any WB games till they make the patent public. The lost potential sickens me to the bone, nemesis mechanic could've easily became one the pillars of modern games, but it's being just left to rot.
I think court stalling tactics should be illegal paired with MASSIVE fines for companies that think they can just run their opposition out of money in court whats the point in a court if money just negates it?
@@szymonrozanski6938 litigation fees should be a flat rate based on the complexity of the case. your point genuinely made me think about it, but that is the solution I have.
Warner Bros with their Nemesis system. One of the best features of any game I've played, and now it's locked away, likely to never be used again and we all miss out.
That expires August 11, 2036. 11 years, 9 months and 25 days from today. Also people seem to be interpreting that patent way too broadly. For example, the patent specifies that the non-player is part of a faction with an ranked hierarchy.
If you read the patent for the nemesis system is really, really specific and other more modern games have done similar things. You basically need enemies to remember you after you die and gain status based on those interactions, including developing a personality. You need a game where you have an excuse to not permanently die for that kind of system to work and Legacy of Kain is probably the only series I can think of where it would work well. AC Odessey had a similar thing with their bounty hunters but since you never came back from death and they never developed a personality the patent didn't apply to them.
@@ericm5315 that's literally the point of ppl being sad this is pattented. "You basically need enemies to remember you after you die and gain status based on those interactions, including developing a personality." That's the whole thing. a LOT of games would have been awesome with that mechanic. "You need a game where you have an excuse to not permanently die for that kind of system to work and Legacy of Kain is probably the only series I can think of where it would work well." There are a lot of solution to this. A allied npc save you last minute, you teleport away, wathever works.
@@ericm5315 I don't know which rock you live under, but Hades is a thing now. Dead Cells before that. In fact, this mechanic would have been awesome in so many roguelikes/roguelites/roguewhatevers. Several entries in Prince of Persia have you never die.
I say this as a Nintendo fan; God I hope this goes as south as PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. I along with the rest of the industry NEEDS patenting gameplay mechanics to be made not legal.
@@Ryanowning It's been over a year for me. Between everything they've done to ruin the industry, and everything they'd done to destroy their fans... I can't justify giving them my money anymore, and that's not counting the absolute dogwater that is their console and games lately.
@@Zyartidk the recent games and switch weren’t bad. Botw and totk are both highly acclaimed, I wouldn’t say a switch is for everyone but it fits its place well enough
You can really see the duality of a company here, and what it's truly like. On one side, Nintendo has genius developers who have been producing, technically and in terms of polish, the best games on the market since the '80s, with only a few falling slightly below this incredibly high standard. On the other side, it's a greedy, outdated company that sues everyone, especially modders and programmers behind amazing fan projects, relentlessly targets emulation sites, and uses some of the worst technology for its online services. That's why I've learned never to idolize a company like a fanboy, whether it's Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, or any other, big or small.
Nintendo should have used the hype around Palworld and make a new Pokemon game with the equivalent quality in graphics and gameplay. They would make at least 10x more money. But like Thor said, they will win on court and most likely the franchise will never see a good game until it goes to oblivion. Most kids nowadays don't even care for Pokemon, zero love and IMHO, the quality of story writing, design and ideas in general, just went into free fall after the second gen (251).
i would say the third generation was acceptable, but everything else is spot on... after this shit show nintendo will never see my money again and i will never get my kids nothing from them
i'm a brazilian law student, at first glance this is really dangerous not only because it opens a door for patents on simple game mechanics like a health bar, so all the games with health bar have to pay me fees, but the real danger lies in reactivity of the law suit, if there is a possibility for me to sue some one based only on a patent, like based only on a peace of paper with a date in it, ignoring the material reality allows other crazy things to happen, depending on the laws of the country it can be scratched for other stuff, like sports, i file a patent on some sport and a can sue every one who involved in that sport
"reactivity of the law suit" Exactly. If this precedent is set then anyone with a patent can use the derivative patent system to patent troll any other corporation within Japan. It would be complete chaos.
This is EXACTLY why all the game studios and devs in the 1980s agreed (in an agreement upheld to this day) that they would patent every unique mechanic in their games and then NEVER enforce them, so that no third party could come in an extort the games industry with hostile patents.
My example for this is, I think that more games could benefit from the mechanic in Middle Earth: Shadow of war nemesis system. We could have had some really cool games with that mechanic in it but WB locked that down. Now while I like Shadow of War I played it now I am done, I haven't seen that in any other games (please let me know if there are other games). A very interesting game choice locked to 1 game and at the time of me posting this it has 4 viewers on twitch what a complete waste of everything that went into designing this just so you can be the only owner of that. 1000% not a great move for the gaming industry. EDIT: Watching the video I see all the comments in the chat for this as well
You may have already seen this, but Moon Channel whom I recently started watching actually excellently explains from the perspective of a lawyer about what's going on. I had no idea how involved Sony was with this mess but now that I do (though I still don't really agree with the actions Nintendo is taking) they make a LOT more sense as to why now. The video is titled "It's a Palworld After All! A Lawyer Explains Nintendo v. Palworld" and though it's a bit long, it's really quite fascinating to see it in a slightly different angle, as well as why the fan-base in different contries is as split as it is.
When Id made their money and Doom was starting to get old, they released rhe source code so people could learn and get even more out of the game. Could you imagine a world where Nintendo is the kind of company that releases the source code of all their games when they where 10 years old? The games in that world are probably pretty great.
Imagine all the old Mario games getting open source code published. Imagine what devs and modders could do with that data. It would breathe huge amounts of life into beloved franchises and bring them to younger generations in a way Nintendo simply doesn’t have the time or resources to bother with.
I think the "that they initiated" is important here. If companies sue Nintendo before Nintendo has a chance to sue them first they have a much higher chance of success, see Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. Im glad this is happening in Japanese court at least because this becoming legal prescedent in the United States or EU would be scary
There are international treaties and other agreements that could possibly allow this Japanese ruling to be upheld against other companies overseas. You notice how every website now nags you about cookies despite you not being in the EU? Just because you are not in their legal jurisdiction does not mean you will not be affected.
Okay, real questions. What the hell do we do as international consumers to make charge in an international industry? What do we do to stop game mechanic patenting? It is destructive, it actively hurts the industry, so how do we make a difference?
@@xomvoid_akaluchiru_987 Simple, don't purchase from the offending party. If this is an egregious enough problem, move on, find other games to play. Yes, it would suck to give up Pokemon/Mario/any Nintendo IP but realistically, that's the only move average joes have against big companies: hit them in their wallets.
@@blackphoenixxiii9144 Adding more regarding what the average joe can do : Not buying is the best, but buying less is still better than buying a ton. So it is still better to buy only one of their games times to times than all of them. Be voiceful. For example tweet about your decision : "Not buying [company]'s game anymore since they did [bad stuff]". This can inspire some other people, and helps the company know why their sales are dropping, and eventually react at some point. A french rapper said in one song "One does not destroys the system by trying to destroying it, one destroys the system by building without it.". I think this is a good thing. Give your money and time to companies/authors etc that are fair, for example by buying their games.
@@blackphoenixxiii9144 "vote with your wallets" just isn't working, we still have season passes, loot boxes, in game perchases, streak rewards, ect. Honestly, after sleeping on it, I think we should organize and form a group, have a website listening offenders, and get content creators to support the movement as spokespersons. If we want to change international law, we have to change it one nation at a time. At least in the US I can actively try pushing a bill through congress, or maybe we try a civil suit? Honestly I think a civil suit would work well if we get a bunch of figures in the industry to submit supporting amicus curiea briefs.
Golden 😂 But seriously, it sucks because there's literally nothing people can do about this bs. Nintendo is just too powerful to stop at this point, and all we can do is attempt to make people stop buying from nintendo (which is impossible) or pray that the judge in this case sides with the smaller company, which is unlikely because nintendo has unlimited money and scummy tactics to keep the lawsuit going until either palworld loses, or goes bankrupt from legal fees.
I'll just patent ESDF instead. gives you more easily accessible buttons, and gives me more options to sue companies which allow rebinding of movement to those specific keys.
In 1994, Namco made Ridge Racer for the PS1. The devs were worried about the load times, and so added the game Galaxian that people could play during loading screens. Namco (and then Bandai-Namco, when they merged) patented this mechanic. They never used it again. The patent expired in 2015, too bad the industry totally forgot this idea ever existed. Patenting Game Mechanics never is good for anything other then the Corporation that does it. Like WB patenting the Nemesis system, though it is supposed to be used in the Wonder Woman Game Monolith is making, assuming WB doesn't shut it down for a Tax Write Off, of course.
Namco did use the mechanic at least once after Ridge Racer. Tekken 5 allowed you to play Starblade during the initial load screen. It still shouldn't have been patented as there were other mini-games used in load screens before their patent in 1995.
Thanks that's the patent I was trying to remember. For decades I have wanted an RPG that lets me mess with inventory while it loads, and this is why we never got one.
I wanted to point this example out for people since it's a really good example of a patent killing a mechanic from flourishing in the games industry, props to you for doing it for me and better than I could've lol.
I think there is a component of capturing said monster, as well as a component of uncertainty in the capture (i.e. every throw doesn't result in capture)... so i don't think grenades count.
@@Raviispretty sure it is the broad aiming mechanism and isn’t specifically about catching anything. It’s been awhile since I read them, but they own a lot of bogus patents like the better balls being represented by colors (as if mobile game rarity isn’t a thing), the bonus from back hits, increased % based on HP and status effects. Things that RPGs have done all the time.
I don't think Nintendo has any legs on this realistically, I just think it's a war of attrition. That being said, this is Japan and their patent laws are probably very different from what we might be used to. Nintendo is also old and established, which is the one thing that's gold above money in Japan.
agreed. This i think is why nintendo was able to push the sub-patents through so fast(the patent filing even states it was fast-tracked). Nintendo is a big and old name, and that kind of thing has weight in Japan
They don't have any right morally to that and in countries like USA they would lose, but it's Japan. Japan is weird. For example in Japan if you say something bad about a company it's defamation, even if what you said is truthful and not even exaggerated nor malicious. If it did damage to the company you lose. Funny country
The problem is that Japan has an even worse problem of mega corporations controlling their government than even America does. The answer to me would be that Palworld moves its hq to USA or something
the only actual reason they have any power in this is because they're both japanese companies and so they can use japanese law to their advantage. Nintendo is bullying them out with local laws.
These are actually valid patents in Japan. According to their patent law you can subdivide an existing, broader patent into smaller, more specific patents, and their effective date is retroactive to the original parent latent. It doesn’t matter if these new patents came out after palworld, the original parent patent was before palworld and that’s all that matters. The Japanese courts will agree, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. The really bad part is that due to international treaties these new patents are enforceable in America as well as the vast majority of the world.
If the Pokemon vs Palworld lawsuit is about the method of capture, there is a problem. There are a TON of other games that use this method. Ark Survival Evolved uses Cryopods TemTem uses TemCards Coromon uses Scanners Nexomon uses Nexotraps And many, many more.
They are also small in terms of funding. Palworld got big and did so very fast. Nintendo doesn't want competition like this, so they're doing what they can to stop it. @@Chestyfriend
I don't know about Ark, but the other ones don't do it in realtime in a 3D environment. Those are turn based and works like the "old" pokemon games, not Legends Arceus.
@@fiskern2241 ark is a 3D environment. As for the other games, it actually doesn't matter. From what I have gathered about game freak and Nintendo. They will go after games of similar nature if they pose a threat in one of the following ways. 1. It's too close to a release of a pokemon game 2. It makes way too much money and pulls the player base away 3. Rare occasion, the name is in use 4. The characters/monsters are not as they would like it. 3 and 4 are more for fan games really, but the point still stands
It’s not about winning in court. It’s about bleeding the competition dry and forcing a settlement that will neuter Pocket Pair. This is what is meant by they never lose. They don’t always win in judgement but they’re better than everyone else at manipulating the system to litigate their opponent to death. They’ve done this before to other devs and companies.
From what I’ve heard (from not lawyers) is that they had the patent a very long time ago. iirc, it was in the 90’s. They filed a different kind of lawsuit after palword’s release. This kind of patent is to “clarify” the language of the old patent or to separate multiple concepts that the first patent covered. The kicker about this type of patent is that (per the written law) this new/revised patent takes effect from the date of the original patent. This is because its purpose is to “clarify” language of the old patent. They used this new patent to write specific language that describes palword to a tee. They 100% did this to “get back” at pocket pair but they actually (allegedly) followed the law in doing so. They now have a brand new patent that can be enforced as far back as the 90’s… truely aweful
And this is why Nintendo will fail, because if this is allowed then anybody with any patent can use derivative patents to backdate the enforceable date of the changes. It will be pure chaos, every single business in Japan will have massive legal liability. And Christ...think of the angry nerds of means who are gonna abuse this to high hell and back to make Nintendo pay big time. Because they will. This is Pandora's box for Japan and Nintendo is trying to force that thing open.
According to publicly available patent records, this isn't the case. The patent in question is specifically related to 3D manually aimed capturing, rather than capturing mechanics as a whole. It was only relevant when Arceus released. You are correct that there is a clarifying patent and a parent patent, but the clarifying patent was from this year (2024), and the parent patent was the 2021-22 patent.
What's frustrating is that Nintendo could've made a better Palworld on their own, but would never have bothered until Palworld proved it's success. Now they'd be better off just buying the company outright instead of burying them with a lawsuit.
@@SirDougDimmadome Nintendo/game freak are 100% incapable of making a good Pokemon game anymore, let alone one that can even run properly on its native hardware LOL. It shouldn't be funny honestly. Pokemon could be a jaw dropping industry defining experience if they really wanted to. Palworld doesn't reach these heights (yet) either but undoubtedly got closer than Pokemon ever has and that was just too much for Pokemon's ego apparently.
@@Gorlokk666 I'm all for Pokémon getting a swift kick in the rear to be better, but don't put the blame on Game Freak when it is 1000% TPC's fault for why the series is in the state it's in right now. Their horribly exploitative release schedules have been choking Game Freak to death since the start of the 3DS era, it's just been more obvious since the move from handheld to console
It feels like Nintendo just cracked open Pandora's box. Now imagine other companies looking at this and thinking, "Wait, you can do that?" and suddenly everyone's patenting the most random stuff. It could honestly be the beginning of the end for gaming as we know it. But if things ever got that bad, I bet we'd see the first global gamer protest, with developers and maybe even some companies joining in. Hopefully, it would lead to the complete elimination of the ability to patent game mechanics altogether. It would definitely turn into something huge.
This is no big news, from what I understand a lot of companies simply don't do this though, because the big ones know this can be exploited, and thus have taken their own measures to prevent this from happening. I recommend you search information about the case with Nintendo vs Colopl to see how this usually works.
As they say: "Nine-year-old Paco Gutierrez always wanted a Nintendo console, but as a poor resident of Venezuela, he could only dream of one. Thanks to his ingenuity and the help of his uncle, he was able to build a Mario game out of cardboard, as well as upload a video about it to RUclips and become famous. After noticing the video, one of the Nintendo executives personally flew to Venezuela to serve him with a lawsuit and sue their family for 200 million."
@@haruga *Sips from a disposable cup loudly* "Hey buddy, just blow in from *stupid* town?" You can choose to stop being stupid, it's like choosing to not smoke cigarettes, its hard and takes effort but you can do it. *Choose to not be stupid.*
As far as I know Middle-earth: Shadow of War patented their nemesis system, which is such a cool mechanic, that I wish would be expended on more games. But we probably won't see any other game in the future from other companies. :(
And now for my latest patent on the color blue. If you use the color blue, or any color derived from blue, you are now infringing on my patent and I get to waste the court's time over it.
You absolutely nailed it. They are out for $$$ and it's sickening. It should be illegal to patent Game mechanics, no different than patenting music instruments to make music. If someone can use great and interesting game mechanics BETTER and make a better game, then it is absolutely in the interest of the consumer. These companies don't make a dime without the gamers and if they make crap, we don't buy. Why would they feel motivated to make good stuff, if all they do is block other devs from using great mechanics in more artistic, meaningful or captivating ways.
Out of all the consoles the only one I was ever considering was the Switch. Since I heard a potential successor was coming out, I was planning on getting it. Though, not anymore. If a company wants to patent a broad mechanic, I refuse to give them even a bit of my support.
I'm sure over the years there was something similar done in a game that we all forgot about. Maybe like Jade Cocoon or something lol. Matter of fact... didn't WoW have a fun little side quest with a similar mechanic?
I mess around with third party d&d creation. It was my understanding you can't patent individual board game mechanics you can't patent what dice are being used you can't say that that using 4D6 or a d20 is specifically your games mechanic. Kind of weird that this is going to be allowed in a more complex medium. I don't know the case where this was decided obviously but pretty sure there's been precedent to protect other board game companies against this sort of lawsuit.
If I read the situation right, the original patent in Japan (the country is also important) was split from a more complex one, creating several extremely simple patents (like riding captured monster or the titular "throw ball in 3D to capture stuff"). These split patents are not really acknowledged outside of Japan. What that translates to is that the practices you are ware of more than likely hold true, but this fight is happening in a sphere outside your familiar field.
Imagine patenting chord progressions in music, slow motion action scenes in movies, rhetorical devices in literature, cooking techniques for cooking... so dumb. The reason we have amazing, endless creations in everything is because we can use known/same/similar concepts in new ways and combinations.
Unfortunately chord progressions don't need to be patented because the copyright system and its overreach have already made it so you can't use "too similar" of a progression.
That is the only way AAA games and companies can fight indie space/smaller studios. They can't make better games so they sue them. That will make the world better for sure
Just imagine the discourage for new developers wanting to make new games, and now they have to worry about not copying mechanics in order to not be sued by Nintendo and ruin their lives, just imagine Nintendo patented Super Metroid mechanics 30 years ago and the amount of great games that could not exist today. What we may be witnessing here is the end of videogames as we know it folks, and the greatest irony with this is that Nintendo saved the videogame industry back in the 80s, and Nintendo could easily destroy that same industry with this behavior.
@@soirema in the US, yeah. In Japan, things are a lot more blurry. Essentially the japanese game industry has enough patents from the years to bury eachother in litigation for infringement IF THEY WANTED TO. They don't. They basically have a public code of honor where they're allowed to use eachothers stuff, so long as its not explicit. Examples include Dragon Quest, Pokemon, etc. There was previously a case where Nintendo sued the company Colopl for attempting to bully smaller devs into paying to use their "Punycon" control scheme. It wasn't heavily covered in the West. Go look up the details.
Almost right BUT not quite. Since Nintendo filed the patent request AFTER the fact it would be more like if Nintendo patented the Metroid mechanic NOW and sued every game company that every used it (In the last 30 years) into bankruptcy. Let that sink in...
I feel like the real power move here would be for the Palworld devs to pay their animators to redesign the capture devices as cubes, and have them be projected at targets via various golf clubs or croquet mallets instead. Now we're no longer violating the patent.
@@NicromeShooter They're probably not going to win purely because Nintendo can keep throwing money at the suit until Palworld loses by no longer being able to continue. But a solution like this would mean circumventing the terms of the patent and spitting in Nintendo's eye because they don't want to protect their patent, they want to shut down the competition.
There is no way Nintendo can win this. If they really patented this mechanic *AFTER* Palworld and Craftopia were already using this mechanic. Gaming Industry would really benefit if Nintendo lost. EDIT: In fact, how the hell were they even able to patent a gaming mechanic, this kind of thing shouldn't even be allowed to be patented in the first place...
there is a tactic with patents where you let the opposition spend money and then let them run into the knife later. you can keep a patent secret and dont have to show the patent right away when you see someone else come up with the same idea. something like this happens in engeneering for medical equipment more often than you would think. then again. my mind is with two teams comming up with the same idea independently, one team being faster filing a patent and the other team gets told some months into trying to get the same patent
lawsuits like these are troubling because they set precedents. Future lawsuits by bad actors will reference this lawsuit to make their case in court. Yes you can patent game mechanics and yes it's very damaging to the industry because a game can pioneer a novel mechanic and instead of it spawning an entire genre (which is one of the main things driving growth, studios, jobs, and diversity in games) it will instead lock it down to a specific developer or publisher and they can just sit on it or the mechanic will never come to market if a certain project goes south. Notable examples of game mechanics that have been patented: The nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor. Many games have attempted to implement this system (it's really cool) only to be shut down because the patent rights belong to the publisher of SOM. Apparently the parkour system in Assassins Creed iirc. Supposedly when the gameplay trailer for Shadow of Mordor came out they themselves got called out by Ubisoft over their climbing/traversal system which took very obvious inspiration from AC. I don't remember if any actual litigation came from it, but it was certainly close and I think since then Ubisoft has attempted to patent their parkour mechanic.
Ubisoft doesn't seem to have any patent related to parkour but they have a bunch of patents on controllers/using instruments as controllers. They apparently have a patent on sending a invite to a friend to play a multiplayer game ...
Also if this goes through, what's stopping someone else from patenting a mechanic that is in an existing nintendo game and then suing Nintendo for it. Nintendo takes ideas from other games just as much as anyone else does
a big reason why game companies patent random things like this is because back in the arcade days small companies would patent things that they saw in other games and then sue the company (pretty much what nintendo is doing now) so the company would patent every little feature in the game just to avoid being sued by someone else in the future. they can (and have) been used maliciously but theres an honour code which companies dont break. funny enough this same thing happened to nintendo themselves before so now we get to see the tables turn.
@@anna-flora999 the gentleman’s agreement was to not sue and to just patent so you dont get sued. im not sure but i think namco patented the results screen so imagine how many people they could sue but dont because of the honour system
@@NonoTRC1 Bandai also patented mini games in loading screens. How many games have used that while the patent was active? The agreement is not to sue over every possible opportunity. Just when it's too egregious. It's still bad that the system allows them to sue, of course, but I can see why Nintendo would consider palworld as having overstepped what's acceptable
I know the part at the end about them going after blizzard was kind of a joke, but I feel like that should be a valid option. If the developers of palworld were to contact developers of other games with the same/similar mechanics that Nintendo is attempting to patent they may be able to bring some back up to this fight. Basically, since Nintendo is being greedy and predatory send somebody even greedier and more predatory after them.
Kinda hard to imagine Nintendo going after Blizzard over that. Sounds like it would cost too much to win too little. So I gotta ask, why would Blizzard bother helping?
@@hugofontes5708 exactly because it would cost too much and win too little. I’m not saying it has to be blizzard, but the principal is still the same. You have one company effectively trying to take a mechanic that many others have used. And they will likely want to keep using it. Especially if they can profit from it, and considering multiple have already made profit from games with similar mechanics, they’re likely not happy to give up those profits. Simply having them come to the table would probably be enough to have Nintendo drop the whole thing. It would basically be showing Nintendo that it would be more risk than it’s worth.
@@vex9895 right, but doesn't Nintendo have to go sue them one by one? Why would any of them bother right now? They are big enough to discourage a bully attrition lawsuit now as much as later, the only ones I could see banding are either already involved or much smaller than Nintendo and need help too
@@hugofontes5708 the thing is if they win this case that just gives them more power to win other cases. Because that would set a legal precedent. Basically the more they win now the more they are going to win later. So it might be in those other companies best interest to stop it now.
No they won, that’s why kirby is named kirby, after the attorney john kirby who defended their right to use the kong name for donkey kong against universal.
@@quebeqseven - I made this joke on another video about this but I love it and want to share. That's why Kirby is always fighting universal threats in his games.
That was initiated by the rights holders of King Kong, though, Universal I believe? They did lose one suit I know of that they initiated, that being Galoob Toys v. Nintendo, they really did not like the Game Genie.
It should be noted that Nintendo just opened a new position for IP lawyer earlier this week. This will continue beyond Palworld and I hope Palworld wins so that it can potentially quell Nintendo's legal bloodlust
Oh no. It should not quell Nintendo's bloodlust. Pocketpair needs to win and Nintendo needs to lose. And challenge another company and get their asses handed to them again. And again. Until they finally stop being the single most litigious company on the planet.
Something I love about the board game industry is that there is an unspoken rule, that you shall not patent mechanics. If I recall correctly there have been a few court cases that have actually been thrown out or overruled because a company was trying to own a mechanic. However, just like Nintendo is trying, with the way the patent/copyright system is currently, it could still happen.
There are a few companies that have patented mechanics already, one of the most infamous ones being Namco establishing itself as the only company that was allowed to put minigames in loading screens between 1995 and 2015. Another patent that is still in effect is on WB Games' Nemesis system in the Lord of the Rings Shadow of ____ Games, which doesn't expire until 2035. WB Games themselves haven't used this mechanic in a game in 8 years. The weirdest part of the whole thing is that you can't do this in the board game space as there are clauses against trying to claim ownership of mechanics or rules without tangibility, so that kind of thing doesn't happen. Games Workshop works around this by presenting their Warhammer army rulebooks with the Art and lore of the faction first, thus providing the tangibility to charge $50 to access an army's mechanics. But that is the case of a company exploiting a loophole and not the norm for the industry.
I really hope the attention this is getting can hopefully get a bunch of people to rise up and get change to the patenting of mechanics. These companies are powerful but surely with enough people under a common goal change can happen.
Reminds me of when CBS/Paramount sued Alec Peters for the Star Trek fan film Prelude to Axanar. They never cared about fan films before, but when Peters crowdsourced $2 million for a full feature fan film to continue the story from Prelude, CBC/Paramount sued him for copyright. They then came up with this litany of fan film rules after they settled the lawsuit.
If I was Palworld I would patent some odd mechanic of theirs and counter sue in japans courts, but to fund it I would do crowd sourcing, like "help us sue nintendo" edition dlc I would also verbatim their arugements in the opposing court, under the same judge if possible
the problem is that given the original patent for Arceus dates back to 2021, Japanese patent law is on the side of Nintendo. In a court of law, that's what matters. Now if you filed a new patent and then tried to sue nintendo, you'd be laughed out of court because a patent filed in 2024 or later, will have no enforceable means on prior Nintendo titles. Additionally gaming devs in Japan are in the habit of patenting everything in case someone tries to use the patents against them; its been a thing since the 80s.
@@GokuSS400 But as Thor stated Palworld existed before the patent itself. That suit falls flat if the catching mechanic already existed in the product before the patent itself.
Reminds me how Warner Bros patented (As far as I remember. Don't know if it officially went through) the idea of enemies reacting to you and evolving over time... so y'know... dynamic character development. In terms of the example in the video, it's so vague that it could be argued to cover so much. Heck, even the idea of throwing a ROCK at an enemy's head to knock them out could fall under the patent.
It seems clear to me that the individuals who approve the patents have absolutely no knowledge of the topic on hand. Patents in general are a very flawed concept and having them be inappropriately administered makes the problem even worse.
Both patents and copyrights were necessary for the economical viability of investing in new technology or creating IP in a capitalist/industrialist environment. They are absolutely nothing more than bandaids to the general issue of how work in capitalism is not valued in itself, but only ever valued in the product it produces. So the result of intellectual work has to artificially be made into a product that can be in the possession of someone.
Said it once, and I'll say it until I die: the Pokèball is just a very fancy net, and does not deserve legal protections. Signed, a pokèmon fan of 25 years.
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, created an amazing procedural generation of antagonists for players to have their own unique nemesis, and since it’s been patented, we have not seen another game be able to use a system like this and build on it.
I hate Nintendo so much. Spiteful, childish compony stuck in the past, hates anything that’s not theirs. They’d sue a child for having a Mario themed birthday party
They take pride in their integrity, and how they've stood firm against an increasingly anti-customer industry. But now they've gone too far, and that image is starting to slip enough for the public to see who they really are.
@@wontonschannel Someone needs to make a fanfiction of corporations as humans, that would be a horrifyingly hilarious spectacle. Everyone gets to be a rich narcissistic sociopath competing for popularity in their own ways.
Legal Mindset has a good video explaining exactly how Nintendo is pulling this off, and why they will likely win. To terribly summarize, they had a broad patent before that somewhat slightly covered this, but after palworld got popular, they split that patent into child patents which lets you specify further what each feature means, however, it will still be effective back when the parent patent was effective. he describes it as a malicious move that is purposefully gaming the system. In recent years I have been becoming more and more dissatisfied with Nintendo as a whole and this doesn't help. Regardless of if you like palworld or not, Nintendo in Japan is overly protecting their IP. The way they think is very different than how others overseas might think. So to them, they are not doing anything malicious, all they are doing is protecting their IP in any way possible, which is potentially killing any sort of new innovation. something that came from DragonQuest before them.
Surely their patents have expired by now? Original pokemon came out in 1996, the patents associated with it should be almost a decade expired; this is true of any patents filing between 1996 and 2004 by the way, so any of their patents from then should be expired based off standard length of term of patents.
If they win then anybody with a patent can just use derivative patents to patent troll within Japan. It'll be total chaos, all business will essentially be held hostage. If Nintendo wins Japan loses and Japan will possibly get excluded from the international patent alliance or whatever the hell they officially call it as they just enabled massive fraudulent patent filings.
It's really funny then that they got their start in video games winning a lawsuit from universal because according to universal Donkey Kong was too similar to King Kong.
Same thing happened with the Nemisis system from shadow of mordor games. Now no one can use a mechanic that has enemies grow without you or even adapt to your strategies you spam at them without WB getting an itch in their lawyers
There's 2 games I love and played the sh*t out of that had an amazing game mechanic that got patented as well. The Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor/War games. They build this incredible mechanic where (regular) enemies that defeat you become a enemy that can hunt you down, they get their own unique quirks, voice lines, remember how they killed you etc. The Nemesis system. And they decided to patent it. Imagine what kind of cool games we could've had with the Nemesis system. IMAGINE A FROMSOFT GAME WITH THE NEMESIS SYSTEM! Ideas should not be patented, they also shouldn't be blatantly copied, but definitely not patented.
I disagree that an idea shouldn't be blatantly copied. If you come up with a game all of your own, and you feel like lifting that mechanic wholesale would be a huge benefit to it, then I say why not go for it? It's a different animal to plagiarism, I'd say.
I agree with the other guy, you should be able to copy ideas. Why is it not okay to copy the concept of Pokémon? But it is OK for shooters, Racers, strategy and Platformer games to copy each other. Why is Pokémon the only genre that isn't allowed to be copied? Because If the competition were allowed to copy them, it would be a game of which game has more quality, that is a game that Nintendo doesn't want to play. Because that means fewer releases per year (less money) and would require them to try to innovate the genre (Not remove features and resell them in later installments).
The Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor is a big example of this. A very cool mechanic that has been sitting collecting dust because it was patented even though the company itself doesn't even do anything with it, they just prevent other developers from applying it to their games.
@@SuperSmashDolls Their patent says nothing about a ball, it simply a capture mechanic requiring an item. There are 31+ claims for the patent, when I was going over it the first 19 could be summed up as common game mechanics. FF7 would defeat most of them, the legend of Zelda games from the 80s and 90s could defeat most of them.
Patent mechanics is absurd. This means I can patent how moving the character works, and therefore, any game with movable characters will have to pay me royalties, or else you'll have to code another way to move your characters, basically I'm taking control over how to vector the directional of your character in a general velocity from point A to point B, this means we can't have no more games with movable characters, that's stupid.
Patents in software are stupid in general, like how many years ago literary putting multiple program windows on top of each other was a lawsuit (I'm pretty sure)
I see what your saying, but the patent mechanic has to have novelty for it to go through, as in its 'unique', no other games or whatever have/is using that mechanic. So we are safe on that front.
@@TwoWayOrbitalStation If you read Nintendo's patent it basically describes how to throw a projectile in a 3D space. If you shoot an arrow with a bow you are doing the same. This is NOT "unique" it's literally how you throw projectiles in a 3D environment, the only difference is the "capture" thing, but the "capture" thing isn't from Pokemon, there are multiple games predeceasing the capture mechanic.
US PTO switched from first to invent to first to file back in 2013, so it no longer matters if something is in public or not. All that matters is who files for the patent first. As best I can tell, the real reasons for this change is perfectly on display here. Bug corpos can now retroactively file patents after their product has become threatened by a small company that can’t afford or didn’t think to file a patent. Also, it significantly reduces record keeping requirements because date logged engineering note books no longer have any relevance Edit: I missed the part about Japanese court. But checked and Japan is a first to file country too
I feel like software patents in general only exist to stifle innovation and competition. I think that people should only be allowed to patent physical inventions that they made, through research and development, not concepts that anyone could come up with and make work on an afternoon on any half modern computer.
@SergioEduP Exactly. The world of software patents is 99.9% obvious crap anyone would be able to replicate without the patent document. Patents are supposed to be about preserving and disseminating technological progress. In exchange for publicly describing how to do [Thing] in a document, the patent holder gets temporary exclusive rights on doing [Thing]. When the workings of [Thing] is obvious to anyone with 2 braincells, the patent is only benefitting the holder who gets to bully others around for daring to put 2 and 2 together.
@@eraser0artem The patent system needs to be reformed. I don't know what it should look like, but as it exists right now it seems to do more harm than good.
Patenting is known to be flawed. Let’s not forget the 2001 “circular transportation facilitation device”. Someone-just to show the flaws-decided to patent a wheel, while someone approved it :D
Patenting is so known to be flawed that the term "Patent Troll" exists. Enough said.
@@kaijuultimax9407Yes, "Patent Troll", someone who makes a shit ton of patents and does nothing with them just so nobody else can make similar things without paying out of the ass.
Nintendo is well known to be a patent troll already, along side Microsoft and Sony - it's just, MS and Sony don't actually defend the game mechanic patents to such a degree. Because they understand its bad for the industry and creativity.
Yeah, patenting mechanics is assanine.
@@flabort its bad for their Reputation. It has absolutely nothing to do with q
Quality of games. Especially the quality of their competitors' games. Why the heck would the company want others to succeed? Its not in it's interest.
Like one of the reccent Final V3 episodes caused me to learn that H264 video format is patented by like hundreds of people
Throwing an item in a 3D space to catch a monster was done by Ghostbusters in 1984 with the ghost trap.
gold comment
Also any game with fishing mechanics in it...
@@arcticfoxpi And there have definitely been a number of video-game adaptations of the series that implemented the mechanics, in 3D and 2D spaces
movies are actually a different category from games and wouldn't apply
@@bradhaines3142 Yes, but as I pointed out, the series popularity lead to video game adaptations
I remember as a kid, I played those DBZ Budokai games that would have a lil button mash mini game during the loading screens. Vegeta does push-ups, Goku eats food, etc. I always wondered why other games didn't have stuff like that during loading screens. I figured it was because they just didn't want to or didn't think of it.
Turns out, Bandai patented the mechanic so that only their games could have stuff like that.
What about the little Cybermen popping up and seeing if you can get the red one to appear by rotating the joysticks
@@SXR123_YT such bullshit
Loading screen minigames yeeee
Someone needs to put Nintendo, WB and Bandai Namco executives in cold storage for a while. Hot headed money grubbing shareholders need to cool off, smh man. I guess that goes for majority of big name shareholders tbh
@@darkpyro786 Oh God WB. The patenting of the nemesis system is the most tragic of all imo.
Patenting video game mechanics is like patenting movie tropes. Imagine if Disney was just like, "I have patented the love triangle. No one else can put a love triangle in their movies ever again. Also, we now own the exclusive rights to the hero-to-villain/villain-to-hero character arcs. Suck it, everyone else."
There are only 7 stories, and Disney owns them all. Muahahaha!
Hero's journey? More like Disney Hero's journey now suckers!
I mean, to be fair, patenting love triangles might make side plot romances better in general...
I can actually see them trying/doing that
Honestly, I'd be all for that. not because I want Disney to own our world even more but more so that writers have to try harder and make better stories rather than sticking to the same 3 tropes
There is a ray of hope here, as a few Japanese law professionals are saying that many of Nintendo's patents may be narrowed or even revoked entirely because of this lawsuit.
That's only if Pocketpair fights for long enough. If Nintendo puts enough financial pressure on through these legal shenanigans they may settle out of court without anything about Nintendo's patents being changed.
I'm not a laywer but since this case started up I have looked into Japanese patent law to see how similar it is to US patent law. Lack of novelty is still a reason for patents to be rejected and for each patent people have found that is relevant to Palworld there has been prior art that would invalidate the patent. Not a one of these patents should have been granted, but Nintendo is going to be trying to drain the coffers of Pocket Pair by stalling in the courts as long as possible to prevent it from getting to the point where these could be overturned.
honestly
i hope to god this happens
nintendo needs to face consequences for pulling this kind of shit
On the flip side, Sony might have a keen interest in giving in a hand. Whoever wins, I think players lose
@@Eric-yd9dm With enough negative press pointing at nintendo for this I could see sony going out of their way to use this to try and gain some goodwill and stick it to an aggressive market competitor. It really depends on how much value they put on stepping on nintendo's toes and if anyone in a boardroom thinks to try to use this for a pr win.
@@thehob3836 I was thinking more on the "wooo tasty precedent hehehe" side, actually
Oh, nonono. They wouldn't go after Activision. Their executives attend each others' cocaine yacht parties.
We're seeing this more and more now. It's basically like this: "The judicial process IS the punishment, not the judgement itself.".
Yep sounds like the current Billy Mitchell vs Karl Jobst suit going on right now.
And the judicial system makes so much money from it, it's incentivized to keep it that way.
@@restlessfrager true
Good old capitalism doing capitalism. You can never win by voting with your wallet.
The judicial system is a place of commerce not a place of justice
Let's not forget that "Throw an object at a monster to capture it" is literally not even Game Freak's creation. They got it from Ultraseven in the 80's, and almost got sued for it and had to change the name of their game from "Capumon" to "Pokemon" in order to stop themselves from getting destroyed by a massive company.
They probably still salty from that, thats why they doing it to other small companies. Somebody needs to boycott Nintendo.
@@CHAKAT-co9lp The phrase "Somebody needs to boycott [inset thing]" is why boycotts don't work.
@@CHAKAT-co9lp Not "somebody", it's "everybody".
Just reinforces the many phrases alluding to this kind of behavior...
"Hurt people hurt people."
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
"The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors."
So often, it seems, the levels to which people will attempt to mistreat others is directly proportional to the amount of power they have over others rather than any sense of morality or lived experiences. As much as people love an underdog, they seem to more firmly believe that "might makes right" when they are the mighty...
It's a pattern with massive companies. They'll sue you now for the stuff they did in the past. "Rules for thee, but not for me" ahh logic.
"They have never lost a case they initiated." Always a first time for everything.
We can only hope
The problem is, like stated, they have enough capital to drag out a lawsuit to the point their opponents go bankrupt, regardless of how wrong Nintendo would be legally speaking.
@@jongustavsson5874 So lets all play Palworld and pay for stuff so they do not go bankrupt.
The law system is flawed and Nintendo never failed probably becuz they pay to win it or got connections, i do hope palworld doesn't get too hurt by this
@@jongustavsson5874 tbf. for their studio size palworld actually made a absolutely insane amount of money they already sold enough to probably all quit their job and be fine. Like its not just any random small studio nintendo sues this time its one that made one of the most hyped games of modern gaming.
If I remember correctly, another Japanese gaming company Bandai Namco had a patent on "auxiliary games" until 2015, basicly minigames, during loading screens. Think about it for decades while we gamed we could have been playing a mini game while waiting for our game to load, Instead of having to stare at our screens for what sometimes could be a long ass time. I don't like it when big corporations use scummy tactics to actively make everything shittier for their benefit. Japan's court system seems like it quite often favours large corporations and the state. The conviction rate in Japanese criminal justice system is over 99%. With numbers like that something doesn't feel right.
Or how about WB and the Nemesis system? That is what they used in shadow of mordor and its sequel on the orc to make them interact with the player. How many cool game ideas could have come from this that we wont see because of them patenting it
Fun Fact: There's a "scam" that involves falsely accusing a foreigner of a crime and only releasing them from jail once they pay a bribe to a government official. Also, it's a staple for police officers to force confessions out of people. Great country that does a lot of things right, but some of the bad parts of the American system are quite emphasized for a country that's otherwise so advanced.
The Japanese legal system is unusual to be sure, and they will very likely side with a well known domestic company over some gaijin upstarts.
The worst part of that patent that no one talks about is the very real chilling effect it had on game development. Because it's been almost a decade since the patent expired and yet Bamco is still the only company that does loading screen minigames. The only good news is that with the evolution of technology, loading screens won't be around much longer anyways.
The police can also hold you indefinitely without charge.
This isnt clutching pearls and protecting some property.
This is mafia behaviour. This is monopolizing market and grossly destroying competition.
It's time to boycott Nintendo.
@@Ryanowning “Like that’s ever gonna happen.”
-Shrek
I mean, considering their past, Yakuza behavior isn't too far off the mark for Nintendo.
The only reason that it is accepted is that they are doing fun games. Their behaviour is utterly malicious and they are one of the worst anti consumer companies out there.
They never release their games on other hardware than their own.
They rarely discount their games
They destroy their communities with lawsuits even if the community wants to just organize events
Their hardware is barely enough to run their games and if you want to emulate it to actually have better performance the project will get a lawsuit - even if you need to buy the game to emulate it (the recent move against emulators is probably because they will release new console soon)
@@Ryanowning let's be real here. Large majority of the "nintendo buyers" buy their games / consoles cause they're fun and have absolutely 0 knowledge or care of what's going on with Palworld (or in general what Nintendo does in court).
You think 5 angry people on reddit would cause any relevant monetary loss when Nintendo makes insane amounts of money off mainly kid products?
Nah, and they know it. They know well enough that their bullying actions in court have no economic consequence.
The biggest problem is that the patent is so vaguely worded such that it applies to any object of any kind thrown by a player at an NPC/player; so this would also cover grenades (etc).
Nintendo sues Halo
"There's no benefit to games, for doing this."
It all really did just scream almost as a spiteful getback at Pocketpair for challenging and succeeding at a game that was just made out of passion and devs that wanted to make a fun game similar to Pokemon.
Patenting mechanics is just greed and another card for companies to stay on top, it stifles creativity and is a horrible direction for games.
I'm just happy Palword is no longer a thing, but they way it went out by Nintendo is so lame I hate this company dude.
also, once again, great pfp
@@michaelstaggmick Why are you happy it's no longer a thing
Is Nintendo trying to get themselves hated as much as EA or are the trying to get on the top 10 of the "hated game company" leaderboard?
@@michaelstaggmick so you like monopolies? You like basically only one player dominating the market and in the process enshitifying the product in order to extract as much money as possible while delivering bellow the bare minimum they can get away with? Case release after release nintendo has with pokemon doing "it's ok cause it's pokemon, they will buy regardless", "oh the game runs like shit and has glitches that even indie studios manage to fix before launch? No biggie it's pokemon"
@@michaelstaggmick bait used to be good
Reminds me of the Worlds 3d developer who owns the patent for "players interacting in an online 3d environment" or something else like that, something so vague it applies to literally every 3d multiplayer game in existence
When boomers are granting patents on stuff they have no clue about lol
isnt that the guy with the "game" to prove he is actually using the patent
@@fondbeebboop9705 yea that guy
You can invalidate a patent in court if you manage to prove it's too vague and wide-reaching, but it still costs money and time. Similarly, you can invalidate a patent if you can prove the patent's mechanic was not actually invented by the patent holder, i.e. was used in other products prior to theirs.
@@fondbeebboop9705 What's it called? I'd like to learn more
Nintendo filing a patent 2 years after a possible competitor already used the patented mechanic in question, then suing said competitor for patent infringement is about as scummy, underhanded, and suspicious as my manager passing me for promotion 6 times and then, once caught, claimed it was because of performance issues that were never discussed with me beforehand.
patents work retroactively. nintendo, if this went to court, would need to (and be able to) prove that this was a feature within their games well prior to palworld. moreover, they'd have an easy time demonstrating to the court that this isn't just some antiquated design they've been sitting on, but a regularly used design that palworld cloned
i am not on nintendo's side either and hate ip laws - but i suspect nintendo would have an easy time winning (not that pocket pair would ever take this all the way to a courtroom anyway), and in any case, pocket pair was being too cavalier. it was a decision full of hubris and stupidity to release a game trading on the clout of clear visual pokemon vibes
I think a good way of getting the point across for "Should not be able to patent game mecchanics"... Is to compare it, simply, to other artforms. Imagine how many painters there would be if Picasso patented... The concept of a paintbrush. If Da Vinci patended oil based paints. If Rembrandt patented shapes on a canvas. If van gogh patented cloth canvases. That is what patenting a game mechanic is in gaming. It's patenting the very means of creating art. It's saying "No, you can't paint with a paint brush, I patented the paintbrush." And it's absolutely unacceptable.
Bad comparison because almost everyone knows about Anish Kapoor and his patented Vanta Black, a black so dark and so toxic that it looks like a void. Artists were furious that they would never get to own or use the material as Kapoor owns it for his own use only, forbidding anyone else from legally touching it.
But then, Stuart Semple created Pinkest Pink and legally forbade Kapoor from purchasing or owning it, as well as anyone else from purchasing or owning it on his behalf. When Kapoor got his hands on Pinkest Pink and stuck his middle finger in it and posted the photo online. Unfortunately, Semple didn't sue because he's pretty poor compared to Kapoor. He did, however, make Black 2.0 and 3.0, as well as Diamond Dust (a paint filled with glass, so don't stick your finger in it!) and none are available to Kapoor for purchase, only literally everyone else.
So, the lesson here is spite, I think. If someone rich stops you from doing something, smash your way around them and make them feel stupid and ashamed, then hit them back by disallowing them specifically from using your products. Reject patent; become Semple.
@@conspiracypanda1200 the problem with that is that the colors are a product not a mechanics within, the comparison to our scenario with palworld would be if any of the steps made to created the void black was patented thus no one could even use it again to create their own stuff
Possibly a better analogy than art would be medicine... as we can clearly see the difference in how non-patented medicine has helped the world compared to patented ones.
For example, compare the polio vaccine to the smallpox vaccine. The polio vaccine was not patented, was invented in the 1950's, and rendered the disease nearly extinct within 30 years. The smallpox vaccine WAS patented, was invented in 1796, and the disease wasn't exterminated until 1980... nearly TWO HUNDRED years later. Coincidence?
Another example is tuberculosis. There are both vaccines and cures for tuberculosis, all of which are patented. More people die from untreated tuberculosis than any other infectious disease. Those deaths are completely unnecessary... except that allowing 1.5 million unnecessary deaths each year protects the bottom line of several companies.
I get that the world is filled with liars and cheats. I get that some people will steal just about anything for personal gain at the expense of the original creator. But patenting something in such a way that even the methods you used for its creation are legally barred from everybody is like killing your own cattle to prevent their theft. It is sad when it comes to art, it is stifling when it comes to games, it is immoral when it comes to medicine.
@@conspiracypanda1200 Patents also typically have an expiratiion - I think it's about 20 years? It's not to stop competition completely, it's to delay them. Thanks to this, you can now freely implement "ghost racer" or "mini game while waiting for load" mechanics into your game and not pay anyone anything. Licenses are a different beast - they don't expire, and are typically bought by business people, when companies approach their bancrupty, to ask people to pay up, should they infringe on them. Example would be take downs of anything that's straight up copy of a tetris.
@@conspiracypanda1200 That's a very different issue, Vantablack is a very specific material with a complex manufacturing process, that is what is patented, and it's very common. None of the outcry is about Surrey patenting their creation. The outcry is that Kapoor got an *exclusive license* in the field of arts, so no other artist can license VB for their own pieces.
I cast “Patent WASD” and “Patent movement via analog sticks” and “Patent Steering Wheel movement” and “Patent Joystick”! Now EVERYONE owes me money!
everyone having to go back to doom-style controls with arrow keys for movement... PATENT THAT TOO
I cast "Patent Movement in general"!!!
Good luck suing me when you can't even move a hand to produce necessary documents.
Check mate!
@@NanakiPL HA! You activated my trap card! I use hand movement for no monetary gain and for informational purposes! I’ll sue you… to donate to charity!
@@vincenty541 Oh no! Charity!!! My only weakness!!
@@NanakiPL don’t worry, you can write it off of your taxes, so it’s only partially effective Kappa
As a Melee player, Nintendo is an absolute monster even when there isn't money involved. I've never seen such jealous behavior from such a high standing organization, it's unreal how it feels like petty high school drama sometimes.
Hasbro was much the same to the brony community until the fanfic lawsuit went to court... that is one hell of a story
Welcome to Japanese corporate culture. Somehow they make American corporations look reasonable.
0:40 wasd is mine now, your move. Or lack there of! *Evil laugh
"Ha! You moved! You've fallen right into my trap!" - "Your what? I must inform you, triggered capturing mechanisms are also patented"
i guess i'll use ijkl.
Forces people to use the old Doom movement keys
😢
I can still... point, and... click!
The Nemesis system always comes up in this context and for good reason. That's something that could be used to make sooo many cool and interesting games, but only one publisher can do it now. Imagine the cool stuff that the indie or AA community could have done with that concept that we will never get to experience now
You can build a similar system if you work around the wording. Note the patent explicitly says enemies and nemisis system. Okay well I have the rememberance ai system and it randomly generates every object in the game. The files of the game store encounters with other objects and objects related to these encounters can access this file to iterate on previous encounters. It's all in wording.
@@ytivarg5371that Is so stupid, no way in hell can that be patented
@@MGrey-qb5xz Brother, they did this years ago - Patent US20160279522A1
@@MGrey-qb5xz Did i ever say patent it. No, its a description for a system to get around warner brothers patent
@@MGrey-qb5xz i don't think you've ever read the actual text of a patent, if you think that "can't be patented"
That’s like Dark souls patenting the dodge roll😂
@@ajnixon9998 thankfully miyazaki is a man with integrity
This isn’t the only patent btw, we don’t know the specific patents sued on yet but it’s theorized about this among others like the mounting of animals and being able to land and dismount. Nintendo also owns seeing a silhouette of your PC when obscured from vision btw.
Palworld Entertainment or whatever might be helpful in this lawsuit. Sony Music and Aniplex (both Sony) may ensure it doesn’t come to a “running out of money” situation.
But yea this is terrible for all. And even if it’s Japanese court, it will still deter small devs from risking trying mechanics like this worldwide because they’ll be afraid to get sued. Small studios can’t pay a patent attorney to shift through thousands if not hundreds of thousands of patents before doing anything.
TPC/Nintendo are patent trolls and gross.
Aight, time for it to go bankrupt. I know it won't but it's time
If Nintendo wins it means that anyone can use derivative patents to backdate enforceable dates. Do you have any idea the level of chaos that would cause? Anybody with any patent and holdings in Japan could just change their previous patents to whatever they like and sue others over patent infringement. The Japanese economy would collapse because all business would be a massive legal risk.
Nintendo is screwed here.
The Nemesis System in the Shadow of Mordor/War games. Patented & then never utilized by WB or any other game studios.
The closest thing we got was the Hunt system in the later RPG Assassin's Creed which was half baked to avoid lawsuit & Watch_Dogs: Legion which admittedly does something interesting with the nemesis system by having it that you recruit the characters rather than fight them, However it's a Ubisoft game so the overall quality was pretty blurry.
Warframe's Lich/Sisters mechanic was a nemesis, and they had to significantly reduce the interactions to avoid a lawsuit.
That one specifically infuriates me because it could have been *revolutionary* if people were actually allowed to use and refine it into a standard feature.
Big thing is that people can do a similar system but make sure it's different enough to screw over WB.
@@Xelnagapriest I completely refuse to engage with any WB games till they make the patent public. The lost potential sickens me to the bone, nemesis mechanic could've easily became one the pillars of modern games, but it's being just left to rot.
I think court stalling tactics should be illegal paired with MASSIVE fines for companies that think they can just run their opposition out of money in court whats the point in a court if money just negates it?
But the longer it lasts.
The more money the courts recieve.
@@szymonrozanski6938 litigation fees should be a flat rate based on the complexity of the case. your point genuinely made me think about it, but that is the solution I have.
Warner Bros with their Nemesis system. One of the best features of any game I've played, and now it's locked away, likely to never be used again and we all miss out.
That expires August 11, 2036. 11 years, 9 months and 25 days from today.
Also people seem to be interpreting that patent way too broadly. For example, the patent specifies that the non-player is part of a faction with an ranked hierarchy.
If you read the patent for the nemesis system is really, really specific and other more modern games have done similar things. You basically need enemies to remember you after you die and gain status based on those interactions, including developing a personality.
You need a game where you have an excuse to not permanently die for that kind of system to work and Legacy of Kain is probably the only series I can think of where it would work well.
AC Odessey had a similar thing with their bounty hunters but since you never came back from death and they never developed a personality the patent didn't apply to them.
@@ericm5315 that's literally the point of ppl being sad this is pattented.
"You basically need enemies to remember you after you die and gain status based on those interactions, including developing a personality."
That's the whole thing. a LOT of games would have been awesome with that mechanic.
"You need a game where you have an excuse to not permanently die for that kind of system to work and Legacy of Kain is probably the only series I can think of where it would work well."
There are a lot of solution to this. A allied npc save you last minute, you teleport away, wathever works.
@@ericm5315 I don't know which rock you live under, but Hades is a thing now. Dead Cells before that. In fact, this mechanic would have been awesome in so many roguelikes/roguelites/roguewhatevers. Several entries in Prince of Persia have you never die.
hopefully warner bros goes bankrupt, honestly it's well deserved at this point.
warner bros suck ass!!!
I say this as a Nintendo fan;
God I hope this goes as south as PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE.
I along with the rest of the industry NEEDS patenting gameplay mechanics to be made not legal.
It's time to boycott Nintendo.
@@Ryanowningwhy ever give such an evil company your money, whether for console, platform, or game?
@@Ryanowning It's been over a year for me. Between everything they've done to ruin the industry, and everything they'd done to destroy their fans... I can't justify giving them my money anymore, and that's not counting the absolute dogwater that is their console and games lately.
@@Zyartidk the recent games and switch weren’t bad. Botw and totk are both highly acclaimed, I wouldn’t say a switch is for everyone but it fits its place well enough
You can really see the duality of a company here, and what it's truly like.
On one side, Nintendo has genius developers who have been producing, technically and in terms of polish, the best games on the market since the '80s, with only a few falling slightly below this incredibly high standard. On the other side, it's a greedy, outdated company that sues everyone, especially modders and programmers behind amazing fan projects, relentlessly targets emulation sites, and uses some of the worst technology for its online services. That's why I've learned never to idolize a company like a fanboy, whether it's Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, or any other, big or small.
Nintendo should have used the hype around Palworld and make a new Pokemon game with the equivalent quality in graphics and gameplay. They would make at least 10x more money.
But like Thor said, they will win on court and most likely the franchise will never see a good game until it goes to oblivion. Most kids nowadays don't even care for Pokemon, zero love and IMHO, the quality of story writing, design and ideas in general, just went into free fall after the second gen (251).
i would say the third generation was acceptable, but everything else is spot on... after this shit show nintendo will never see my money again and i will never get my kids nothing from them
i'm a brazilian law student, at first glance this is really dangerous not only because it opens a door for patents on simple game mechanics like a health bar, so all the games with health bar have to pay me fees, but the real danger lies in reactivity of the law suit, if there is a possibility for me to sue some one based only on a patent, like based only on a peace of paper with a date in it, ignoring the material reality allows other crazy things to happen, depending on the laws of the country it can be scratched for other stuff, like sports, i file a patent on some sport and a can sue every one who involved in that sport
Imagina patentear apito ou outros dispositivos e formas de interromper disputas esportivas. Patentear botão de pausa. Sem condições
"reactivity of the law suit" Exactly. If this precedent is set then anyone with a patent can use the derivative patent system to patent troll any other corporation within Japan. It would be complete chaos.
Who cares , usa wants to patent then it's their right
This is EXACTLY why all the game studios and devs in the 1980s agreed (in an agreement upheld to this day) that they would patent every unique mechanic in their games and then NEVER enforce them, so that no third party could come in an extort the games industry with hostile patents.
@@corpsimmons575 holy shit, then Nintendo might mean war
My example for this is, I think that more games could benefit from the mechanic in Middle Earth: Shadow of war nemesis system. We could have had some really cool games with that mechanic in it but WB locked that down. Now while I like Shadow of War I played it now I am done, I haven't seen that in any other games (please let me know if there are other games). A very interesting game choice locked to 1 game and at the time of me posting this it has 4 viewers on twitch what a complete waste of everything that went into designing this just so you can be the only owner of that. 1000% not a great move for the gaming industry.
EDIT: Watching the video I see all the comments in the chat for this as well
The only game iirc that's in development with that system is the wonder woman game that seems to be going through development issues. 😭
We had Black and White too, with their gesture recognition mechanic. Loved that game.
The closest thing I can think of right now is the XCOM 2 Chosen but it isnt quite as complex
Yep! And now they're just sitting on it.
Never played that game, how did the Nemesis system work?
You may have already seen this, but Moon Channel whom I recently started watching actually excellently explains from the perspective of a lawyer about what's going on. I had no idea how involved Sony was with this mess but now that I do (though I still don't really agree with the actions Nintendo is taking) they make a LOT more sense as to why now.
The video is titled "It's a Palworld After All! A Lawyer Explains Nintendo v. Palworld" and though it's a bit long, it's really quite fascinating to see it in a slightly different angle, as well as why the fan-base in different contries is as split as it is.
When Id made their money and Doom was starting to get old, they released rhe source code so people could learn and get even more out of the game. Could you imagine a world where Nintendo is the kind of company that releases the source code of all their games when they where 10 years old? The games in that world are probably pretty great.
Nope, those games are instead still full price lol, damn nintendo
Also cease and desisting Emulator companies.... and then they turn around and release Emulatod version of their own games at full price
Imagine all the old Mario games getting open source code published. Imagine what devs and modders could do with that data. It would breathe huge amounts of life into beloved franchises and bring them to younger generations in a way Nintendo simply doesn’t have the time or resources to bother with.
I think the "that they initiated" is important here. If companies sue Nintendo before Nintendo has a chance to sue them first they have a much higher chance of success, see Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.
Im glad this is happening in Japanese court at least because this becoming legal prescedent in the United States or EU would be scary
There are international treaties and other agreements that could possibly allow this Japanese ruling to be upheld against other companies overseas. You notice how every website now nags you about cookies despite you not being in the EU? Just because you are not in their legal jurisdiction does not mean you will not be affected.
I sincerely hope this backfires spectacularly on Nintendo. Copyrighting basic game mechanics is just skullduggery of the basest degree.
Okay, real questions. What the hell do we do as international consumers to make charge in an international industry? What do we do to stop game mechanic patenting? It is destructive, it actively hurts the industry, so how do we make a difference?
@@xomvoid_akaluchiru_987
Simple, don't purchase from the offending party. If this is an egregious enough problem, move on, find other games to play. Yes, it would suck to give up Pokemon/Mario/any Nintendo IP but realistically, that's the only move average joes have against big companies: hit them in their wallets.
create a non profit organization that registers all patents we can think of for game mechanics and figure out how to "license" them for free?
Dont sell in america. No san country has software patents because it doesn't make sense
@@blackphoenixxiii9144 Adding more regarding what the average joe can do :
Not buying is the best, but buying less is still better than buying a ton. So it is still better to buy only one of their games times to times than all of them.
Be voiceful. For example tweet about your decision : "Not buying [company]'s game anymore since they did [bad stuff]". This can inspire some other people, and helps the company know why their sales are dropping, and eventually react at some point.
A french rapper said in one song "One does not destroys the system by trying to destroying it, one destroys the system by building without it.". I think this is a good thing. Give your money and time to companies/authors etc that are fair, for example by buying their games.
@@blackphoenixxiii9144 "vote with your wallets" just isn't working, we still have season passes, loot boxes, in game perchases, streak rewards, ect. Honestly, after sleeping on it, I think we should organize and form a group, have a website listening offenders, and get content creators to support the movement as spokespersons. If we want to change international law, we have to change it one nation at a time. At least in the US I can actively try pushing a bill through congress, or maybe we try a civil suit? Honestly I think a civil suit would work well if we get a bunch of figures in the industry to submit supporting amicus curiea briefs.
Thor: "WASD is mine now, Gamers. Your move"
Gamers: "But... we can't move now"
Golden 😂
But seriously, it sucks because there's literally nothing people can do about this bs. Nintendo is just too powerful to stop at this point, and all we can do is attempt to make people stop buying from nintendo (which is impossible) or pray that the judge in this case sides with the smaller company, which is unlikely because nintendo has unlimited money and scummy tactics to keep the lawsuit going until either palworld loses, or goes bankrupt from legal fees.
Born to WASD, forced to TFGH
I'll just patent ESDF instead.
gives you more easily accessible buttons, and gives me more options to sue companies which allow rebinding of movement to those specific keys.
5:15 that's a 5M views yt short right there.
In 1994, Namco made Ridge Racer for the PS1. The devs were worried about the load times, and so added the game Galaxian that people could play during loading screens. Namco (and then Bandai-Namco, when they merged) patented this mechanic. They never used it again. The patent expired in 2015, too bad the industry totally forgot this idea ever existed. Patenting Game Mechanics never is good for anything other then the Corporation that does it. Like WB patenting the Nemesis system, though it is supposed to be used in the Wonder Woman Game Monolith is making, assuming WB doesn't shut it down for a Tax Write Off, of course.
Namco did use the mechanic at least once after Ridge Racer. Tekken 5 allowed you to play Starblade during the initial load screen. It still shouldn't have been patented as there were other mini-games used in load screens before their patent in 1995.
Thanks that's the patent I was trying to remember. For decades I have wanted an RPG that lets me mess with inventory while it loads, and this is why we never got one.
Some Dragon Ball games also had some mashing minigames in the loading screens.
I wanted to point this example out for people since it's a really good example of a patent killing a mechanic from flourishing in the games industry, props to you for doing it for me and better than I could've lol.
what was invade-a-load
"throwing a ball at a monster in a 3D space"
sorry guys but grenades are off the menu for any video game with monsters now
I think there is a component of capturing said monster, as well as a component of uncertainty in the capture (i.e. every throw doesn't result in capture)... so i don't think grenades count.
@@Raviispretty sure it is the broad aiming mechanism and isn’t specifically about catching anything. It’s been awhile since I read them, but they own a lot of bogus patents like the better balls being represented by colors (as if mobile game rarity isn’t a thing), the bonus from back hits, increased % based on HP and status effects. Things that RPGs have done all the time.
It's kinda of interesting because if I recall they didn't sue them the moment the game launched.
I don't think Nintendo has any legs on this realistically, I just think it's a war of attrition. That being said, this is Japan and their patent laws are probably very different from what we might be used to. Nintendo is also old and established, which is the one thing that's gold above money in Japan.
agreed. This i think is why nintendo was able to push the sub-patents through so fast(the patent filing even states it was fast-tracked). Nintendo is a big and old name, and that kind of thing has weight in Japan
They don't have any right morally to that and in countries like USA they would lose, but it's Japan. Japan is weird. For example in Japan if you say something bad about a company it's defamation, even if what you said is truthful and not even exaggerated nor malicious. If it did damage to the company you lose.
Funny country
The problem is that Japan has an even worse problem of mega corporations controlling their government than even America does. The answer to me would be that Palworld moves its hq to USA or something
the only actual reason they have any power in this is because they're both japanese companies and so they can use japanese law to their advantage. Nintendo is bullying them out with local laws.
These are actually valid patents in Japan. According to their patent law you can subdivide an existing, broader patent into smaller, more specific patents, and their effective date is retroactive to the original parent latent. It doesn’t matter if these new patents came out after palworld, the original parent patent was before palworld and that’s all that matters. The Japanese courts will agree, this isn’t the first time it’s happened.
The really bad part is that due to international treaties these new patents are enforceable in America as well as the vast majority of the world.
If the Pokemon vs Palworld lawsuit is about the method of capture, there is a problem.
There are a TON of other games that use this method.
Ark Survival Evolved uses Cryopods
TemTem uses TemCards
Coromon uses Scanners
Nexomon uses Nexotraps
And many, many more.
In a sane country this would get thrown out in court. But the case is in Japan. Conviction rate for criminals in Japan is something insane like 99%.
They are also small in terms of funding. Palworld got big and did so very fast. Nintendo doesn't want competition like this, so they're doing what they can to stop it. @@Chestyfriend
I don't know about Ark, but the other ones don't do it in realtime in a 3D environment. Those are turn based and works like the "old" pokemon games, not Legends Arceus.
@@fiskern2241 ark is a 3D environment. As for the other games, it actually doesn't matter. From what I have gathered about game freak and Nintendo. They will go after games of similar nature if they pose a threat in one of the following ways.
1. It's too close to a release of a pokemon game
2. It makes way too much money and pulls the player base away
3. Rare occasion, the name is in use
4. The characters/monsters are not as they would like it.
3 and 4 are more for fan games really, but the point still stands
I do wonder if their patent about online cross-play is involved, it's way easier to apply to a lot of case.
“WASD is mine now! Your move.”
I… Can’t…
Rebind to TFGH
I would say move with arrow keys but "patents arrow keys" yeah
It’s not about winning in court. It’s about bleeding the competition dry and forcing a settlement that will neuter Pocket Pair. This is what is meant by they never lose. They don’t always win in judgement but they’re better than everyone else at manipulating the system to litigate their opponent to death. They’ve done this before to other devs and companies.
@@blurgalsklech2929 I hope they launch a go fund me to support them
@@blurgalsklech2929 Considering Sony was looking at buying PocketPair, they might end up creating another monster
From what I’ve heard (from not lawyers) is that they had the patent a very long time ago. iirc, it was in the 90’s. They filed a different kind of lawsuit after palword’s release. This kind of patent is to “clarify” the language of the old patent or to separate multiple concepts that the first patent covered. The kicker about this type of patent is that (per the written law) this new/revised patent takes effect from the date of the original patent. This is because its purpose is to “clarify” language of the old patent. They used this new patent to write specific language that describes palword to a tee. They 100% did this to “get back” at pocket pair but they actually (allegedly) followed the law in doing so. They now have a brand new patent that can be enforced as far back as the 90’s… truely aweful
And this is why Nintendo will fail, because if this is allowed then anybody with any patent can use derivative patents to backdate the enforceable date of the changes. It will be pure chaos, every single business in Japan will have massive legal liability.
And Christ...think of the angry nerds of means who are gonna abuse this to high hell and back to make Nintendo pay big time. Because they will. This is Pandora's box for Japan and Nintendo is trying to force that thing open.
According to publicly available patent records, this isn't the case. The patent in question is specifically related to 3D manually aimed capturing, rather than capturing mechanics as a whole. It was only relevant when Arceus released. You are correct that there is a clarifying patent and a parent patent, but the clarifying patent was from this year (2024), and the parent patent was the 2021-22 patent.
Man I just wish GTA 6 parodies this by adding a mission where you catch someone, preferably a lawyer in a giant ball.
What's frustrating is that Nintendo could've made a better Palworld on their own, but would never have bothered until Palworld proved it's success. Now they'd be better off just buying the company outright instead of burying them with a lawsuit.
@@SirDougDimmadome Nintendo/game freak are 100% incapable of making a good Pokemon game anymore, let alone one that can even run properly on its native hardware LOL. It shouldn't be funny honestly. Pokemon could be a jaw dropping industry defining experience if they really wanted to. Palworld doesn't reach these heights (yet) either but undoubtedly got closer than Pokemon ever has and that was just too much for Pokemon's ego apparently.
@@Gorlokk666 I'm all for Pokémon getting a swift kick in the rear to be better, but don't put the blame on Game Freak when it is 1000% TPC's fault for why the series is in the state it's in right now. Their horribly exploitative release schedules have been choking Game Freak to death since the start of the 3DS era, it's just been more obvious since the move from handheld to console
It feels like Nintendo just cracked open Pandora's box. Now imagine other companies looking at this and thinking, "Wait, you can do that?" and suddenly everyone's patenting the most random stuff. It could honestly be the beginning of the end for gaming as we know it. But if things ever got that bad, I bet we'd see the first global gamer protest, with developers and maybe even some companies joining in. Hopefully, it would lead to the complete elimination of the ability to patent game mechanics altogether. It would definitely turn into something huge.
Power Drift was a kart racer that released years before Mario Kart, and that was made by Sega...
This is no big news, from what I understand a lot of companies simply don't do this though, because the big ones know this can be exploited, and thus have taken their own measures to prevent this from happening. I recommend you search information about the case with Nintendo vs Colopl to see how this usually works.
This isn't a new thing. At all. Has been happening for decades
"WASD is mine now gamers. Your move. Oh what, you can't because I took WASD?" *Skeletor Laugh*
"moves with arrow keys and patents arrow keys" now what
As they say: "Nine-year-old Paco Gutierrez always wanted a Nintendo console, but as a poor resident of Venezuela, he could only dream of one.
Thanks to his ingenuity and the help of his uncle, he was able to build a Mario game out of cardboard, as well as upload a video about it to RUclips and become famous.
After noticing the video, one of the Nintendo executives personally flew to Venezuela to serve him with a lawsuit and sue their family for 200 million."
source: trust me bro
@@haruga It's a meme, dude
@@haruga r/whoosh
@@haruga *Sips from a disposable cup loudly*
"Hey buddy, just blow in from *stupid* town?"
You can choose to stop being stupid, it's like choosing to not smoke cigarettes, its hard and takes effort but you can do it. *Choose to not be stupid.*
@@harugaDUDE its a goddamn joke
how many braincells do you have at your disposal? 3?
Patenting a game mechanic to choke out new developers would be like chopping an artists hands off who uses an established style by another master.
As far as I know Middle-earth: Shadow of War patented their nemesis system, which is such a cool mechanic, that I wish would be expended on more games. But we probably won't see any other game in the future from other companies. :(
And now for my latest patent on the color blue. If you use the color blue, or any color derived from blue, you are now infringing on my patent and I get to waste the court's time over it.
So i know it's a joke but here i am
Colors can't be patented. However you can patent a recipe to get this exact color.
You absolutely nailed it. They are out for $$$ and it's sickening. It should be illegal to patent Game mechanics, no different than patenting music instruments to make music.
If someone can use great and interesting game mechanics BETTER and make a better game, then it is absolutely in the interest of the consumer.
These companies don't make a dime without the gamers and if they make crap, we don't buy. Why would they feel motivated to make good stuff, if all they do is block other devs from using great mechanics in more artistic, meaningful or captivating ways.
This reminds me of the FF14's crossbar system. I remember hearing that they didnt want to patent it so other people can use it in their games.
Great take and we appreciate a non-biased review of the issue from a developer pov.
Out of all the consoles the only one I was ever considering was the Switch. Since I heard a potential successor was coming out, I was planning on getting it.
Though, not anymore. If a company wants to patent a broad mechanic, I refuse to give them even a bit of my support.
I'm sure over the years there was something similar done in a game that we all forgot about. Maybe like Jade Cocoon or something lol. Matter of fact... didn't WoW have a fun little side quest with a similar mechanic?
I mess around with third party d&d creation. It was my understanding you can't patent individual board game mechanics you can't patent what dice are being used you can't say that that using 4D6 or a d20 is specifically your games mechanic.
Kind of weird that this is going to be allowed in a more complex medium.
I don't know the case where this was decided obviously but pretty sure there's been precedent to protect other board game companies against this sort of lawsuit.
If I read the situation right, the original patent in Japan (the country is also important) was split from a more complex one, creating several extremely simple patents (like riding captured monster or the titular "throw ball in 3D to capture stuff").
These split patents are not really acknowledged outside of Japan.
What that translates to is that the practices you are ware of more than likely hold true, but this fight is happening in a sphere outside your familiar field.
Imagine patenting chord progressions in music, slow motion action scenes in movies, rhetorical devices in literature, cooking techniques for cooking... so dumb.
The reason we have amazing, endless creations in everything is because we can use known/same/similar concepts in new ways and combinations.
Unfortunately chord progressions don't need to be patented because the copyright system and its overreach have already made it so you can't use "too similar" of a progression.
reminds me of when the nemisis system was patented, imagine what games could be doing today with that.
Yet another instance of where you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Pokémon was never the hero.
@@rosheafan Maybe like gen 2 or 3 when the dev pains from writing games in assembly code was still fresh
That is the only way AAA games and companies can fight indie space/smaller studios. They can't make better games so they sue them. That will make the world better for sure
If it comes to that, I'll dig up old games and play only those. Won't even look at patent hogs new releases
Nintendo lost their lawsuit they initiated against Blockbuster.
"Your move"
No we can't, you just patented it.
Just imagine the discourage for new developers wanting to make new games, and now they have to worry about not copying mechanics in order to not be sued by Nintendo and ruin their lives, just imagine Nintendo patented Super Metroid mechanics 30 years ago and the amount of great games that could not exist today.
What we may be witnessing here is the end of videogames as we know it folks, and the greatest irony with this is that Nintendo saved the videogame industry back in the 80s, and Nintendo could easily destroy that same industry with this behavior.
thats kinda already true isnt it? whatever is a patent cant be used...
@@soirema in the US, yeah. In Japan, things are a lot more blurry.
Essentially the japanese game industry has enough patents from the years to bury eachother in litigation for infringement IF THEY WANTED TO. They don't.
They basically have a public code of honor where they're allowed to use eachothers stuff, so long as its not explicit. Examples include Dragon Quest, Pokemon, etc.
There was previously a case where Nintendo sued the company Colopl for attempting to bully smaller devs into paying to use their "Punycon" control scheme. It wasn't heavily covered in the West. Go look up the details.
@@GokuSS400 theres no such thing as honor in business lol, its just mutually assured destruction
Almost right BUT not quite. Since Nintendo filed the patent request AFTER the fact it would be more like if Nintendo patented the Metroid mechanic NOW and sued every game company that every used it (In the last 30 years) into bankruptcy. Let that sink in...
Nintendo about to copyright strike SoftPirate for use of the word “dogshit” that pupshit is copyrighted.
5:37 im mean at this point, blizzard should go sue Nintendo for the same reason
I feel like the real power move here would be for the Palworld devs to pay their animators to redesign the capture devices as cubes, and have them be projected at targets via various golf clubs or croquet mallets instead. Now we're no longer violating the patent.
Unfortunately they might have like sixty more of those patents. Like training your monsters and them evolving. Or whatever other shit
I highly disagree as that would be just Palworld giving in. In other words every other dev should be afraid of similar lawsuits.
That would be an admission of guilt on their part, it will make thing worst for them.
@@NicromeShooter They're probably not going to win purely because Nintendo can keep throwing money at the suit until Palworld loses by no longer being able to continue. But a solution like this would mean circumventing the terms of the patent and spitting in Nintendo's eye because they don't want to protect their patent, they want to shut down the competition.
What if they just lowered the poly count of the spheres and called something like a pal Icosahedron
There is no way Nintendo can win this. If they really patented this mechanic *AFTER* Palworld and Craftopia were already using this mechanic. Gaming Industry would really benefit if Nintendo lost.
EDIT: In fact, how the hell were they even able to patent a gaming mechanic, this kind of thing shouldn't even be allowed to be patented in the first place...
This reminds me of the people who patented playing a video or minigame during loading screens back in the 90s.
Blame Namco for that one
Bandai Namco, it was the early 2000s, and the patent had prior art from the Commodore 64 that nobody noticed.
there is a tactic with patents where you let the opposition spend money and then let them run into the knife later. you can keep a patent secret and dont have to show the patent right away when you see someone else come up with the same idea.
something like this happens in engeneering for medical equipment more often than you would think.
then again. my mind is with two teams comming up with the same idea independently, one team being faster filing a patent and the other team gets told some months into trying to get the same patent
Yooooo love this take!! Great facts and great opinion on things very well thought out!
I really hope that if Nintendo wins the lawsuit, Ubisoft will come after them for copying the synchronize mechanic from assassin's creed used in botw
That could only happen if Ubisoft has a patent on that mechanic (I don't think they do but I might be wrong)
And then Rocksteady can go after Ubisoft for lifting Arkham Asylum's combat system wholesale for Asscreed.
@@SergioEduP Apparently it's never too late
Ubisoft has that partnership with them to release that Mario+Rabbids shit.
might be a way for Ubisoft to finally make revenue!
lawsuits like these are troubling because they set precedents. Future lawsuits by bad actors will reference this lawsuit to make their case in court. Yes you can patent game mechanics and yes it's very damaging to the industry because a game can pioneer a novel mechanic and instead of it spawning an entire genre (which is one of the main things driving growth, studios, jobs, and diversity in games) it will instead lock it down to a specific developer or publisher and they can just sit on it or the mechanic will never come to market if a certain project goes south.
Notable examples of game mechanics that have been patented:
The nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor.
Many games have attempted to implement this system (it's really cool) only to be shut down because the patent rights belong to the publisher of SOM.
Apparently the parkour system in Assassins Creed iirc.
Supposedly when the gameplay trailer for Shadow of Mordor came out they themselves got called out by Ubisoft over their climbing/traversal system which took very obvious inspiration from AC. I don't remember if any actual litigation came from it, but it was certainly close and I think since then Ubisoft has attempted to patent their parkour mechanic.
Ubisoft doesn't seem to have any patent related to parkour but they have a bunch of patents on controllers/using instruments as controllers.
They apparently have a patent on sending a invite to a friend to play a multiplayer game ...
Also if this goes through, what's stopping someone else from patenting a mechanic that is in an existing nintendo game and then suing Nintendo for it. Nintendo takes ideas from other games just as much as anyone else does
a big reason why game companies patent random things like this is because back in the arcade days small companies would patent things that they saw in other games and then sue the company (pretty much what nintendo is doing now) so the company would patent every little feature in the game just to avoid being sued by someone else in the future. they can (and have) been used maliciously but theres an honour code which companies dont break. funny enough this same thing happened to nintendo themselves before so now we get to see the tables turn.
And pocketpair broke that honor system
@@anna-flora999 no nintendo did
@@NonoTRC1 pocketpair did. The gentleman's agreement is basically to stay off of each other's lawns. They did not.
@@anna-flora999 the gentleman’s agreement was to not sue and to just patent so you dont get sued. im not sure but i think namco patented the results screen so imagine how many people they could sue but dont because of the honour system
@@NonoTRC1 Bandai also patented mini games in loading screens. How many games have used that while the patent was active?
The agreement is not to sue over every possible opportunity. Just when it's too egregious. It's still bad that the system allows them to sue, of course, but I can see why Nintendo would consider palworld as having overstepped what's acceptable
I know the part at the end about them going after blizzard was kind of a joke, but I feel like that should be a valid option. If the developers of palworld were to contact developers of other games with the same/similar mechanics that Nintendo is attempting to patent they may be able to bring some back up to this fight. Basically, since Nintendo is being greedy and predatory send somebody even greedier and more predatory after them.
Kinda hard to imagine Nintendo going after Blizzard over that. Sounds like it would cost too much to win too little. So I gotta ask, why would Blizzard bother helping?
@@hugofontes5708 exactly because it would cost too much and win too little. I’m not saying it has to be blizzard, but the principal is still the same. You have one company effectively trying to take a mechanic that many others have used. And they will likely want to keep using it. Especially if they can profit from it, and considering multiple have already made profit from games with similar mechanics, they’re likely not happy to give up those profits. Simply having them come to the table would probably be enough to have Nintendo drop the whole thing. It would basically be showing Nintendo that it would be more risk than it’s worth.
@@vex9895 right, but doesn't Nintendo have to go sue them one by one? Why would any of them bother right now? They are big enough to discourage a bully attrition lawsuit now as much as later, the only ones I could see banding are either already involved or much smaller than Nintendo and need help too
@@hugofontes5708 the thing is if they win this case that just gives them more power to win other cases. Because that would set a legal precedent. Basically the more they win now the more they are going to win later. So it might be in those other companies best interest to stop it now.
@@vex9895 but court bullying goes both ways even if they win. They might have a sure win but burn too much anyway to be worth upfront
I simply wish that people would make consequences for corps that do this type of stuff, STOP GIVING THEM MONEY!
2:00 Didn't Nintendo lose the rights battle for Kong over the original Jump Man Mario game?
No they won, that’s why kirby is named kirby, after the attorney john kirby who defended their right to use the kong name for donkey kong against universal.
@@quebeqseven - I made this joke on another video about this but I love it and want to share. That's why Kirby is always fighting universal threats in his games.
That was initiated by the rights holders of King Kong, though, Universal I believe? They did lose one suit I know of that they initiated, that being Galoob Toys v. Nintendo, they really did not like the Game Genie.
It should be noted that Nintendo just opened a new position for IP lawyer earlier this week. This will continue beyond Palworld and I hope Palworld wins so that it can potentially quell Nintendo's legal bloodlust
Oh no. It should not quell Nintendo's bloodlust.
Pocketpair needs to win and Nintendo needs to lose. And challenge another company and get their asses handed to them again. And again. Until they finally stop being the single most litigious company on the planet.
Something I love about the board game industry is that there is an unspoken rule, that you shall not patent mechanics. If I recall correctly there have been a few court cases that have actually been thrown out or overruled because a company was trying to own a mechanic.
However, just like Nintendo is trying, with the way the patent/copyright system is currently, it could still happen.
There are a few companies that have patented mechanics already, one of the most infamous ones being Namco establishing itself as the only company that was allowed to put minigames in loading screens between 1995 and 2015.
Another patent that is still in effect is on WB Games' Nemesis system in the Lord of the Rings Shadow of ____ Games, which doesn't expire until 2035. WB Games themselves haven't used this mechanic in a game in 8 years.
The weirdest part of the whole thing is that you can't do this in the board game space as there are clauses against trying to claim ownership of mechanics or rules without tangibility, so that kind of thing doesn't happen.
Games Workshop works around this by presenting their Warhammer army rulebooks with the Art and lore of the faction first, thus providing the tangibility to charge $50 to access an army's mechanics. But that is the case of a company exploiting a loophole and not the norm for the industry.
I really hope the attention this is getting can hopefully get a bunch of people to rise up and get change to the patenting of mechanics. These companies are powerful but surely with enough people under a common goal change can happen.
Reminds me of when CBS/Paramount sued Alec Peters for the Star Trek fan film Prelude to Axanar. They never cared about fan films before, but when Peters crowdsourced $2 million for a full feature fan film to continue the story from Prelude, CBC/Paramount sued him for copyright. They then came up with this litany of fan film rules after they settled the lawsuit.
If I was Palworld I would patent some odd mechanic of theirs and counter sue in japans courts, but to fund it I would do crowd sourcing, like "help us sue nintendo" edition dlc
I would also verbatim their arugements in the opposing court, under the same judge if possible
@@smartwatchonpluto I wouldn’t mind a color shift DLC that parents the mechanic of generating rare alternate color creatures able to be capture.
They would lose since the japanese courts would side with the japanese company. Prioritize the state/nationalism over legal correctness.
I would buy It right away
the problem is that given the original patent for Arceus dates back to 2021, Japanese patent law is on the side of Nintendo. In a court of law, that's what matters.
Now if you filed a new patent and then tried to sue nintendo, you'd be laughed out of court because a patent filed in 2024 or later, will have no enforceable means on prior Nintendo titles.
Additionally gaming devs in Japan are in the habit of patenting everything in case someone tries to use the patents against them; its been a thing since the 80s.
@@GokuSS400 But as Thor stated Palworld existed before the patent itself. That suit falls flat if the catching mechanic already existed in the product before the patent itself.
1:58 Nintendo lost the "game genie" lawsuit. Also, remapping to EDSF. Your move!
Was that on Japan though?
@@Eichro Nintendo America
@@Krissco2 So yeah, Nintendo never lost IN JAPANESE COURTS. They had some Ls outside.
Reminds me how Warner Bros patented (As far as I remember. Don't know if it officially went through) the idea of enemies reacting to you and evolving over time... so y'know... dynamic character development.
In terms of the example in the video, it's so vague that it could be argued to cover so much. Heck, even the idea of throwing a ROCK at an enemy's head to knock them out could fall under the patent.
It seems clear to me that the individuals who approve the patents have absolutely no knowledge of the topic on hand. Patents in general are a very flawed concept and having them be inappropriately administered makes the problem even worse.
Both patents and copyrights were necessary for the economical viability of investing in new technology or creating IP in a capitalist/industrialist environment. They are absolutely nothing more than bandaids to the general issue of how work in capitalism is not valued in itself, but only ever valued in the product it produces. So the result of intellectual work has to artificially be made into a product that can be in the possession of someone.
Said it once, and I'll say it until I die: the Pokèball is just a very fancy net, and does not deserve legal protections. Signed, a pokèmon fan of 25 years.
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, created an amazing procedural generation of antagonists for players to have their own unique nemesis, and since it’s been patented, we have not seen another game be able to use a system like this and build on it.
I hate Nintendo so much. Spiteful, childish compony stuck in the past, hates anything that’s not theirs. They’d sue a child for having a Mario themed birthday party
If that party made lots of money, you bet nintendo will be coming for that child
Them and Disney must get along at parties.
@@Raviis you think either of them get invited to parties?
They take pride in their integrity, and how they've stood firm against an increasingly anti-customer industry. But now they've gone too far, and that image is starting to slip enough for the public to see who they really are.
@@wontonschannel Someone needs to make a fanfiction of corporations as humans, that would be a horrifyingly hilarious spectacle. Everyone gets to be a rich narcissistic sociopath competing for popularity in their own ways.
Legal Mindset has a good video explaining exactly how Nintendo is pulling this off, and why they will likely win. To terribly summarize, they had a broad patent before that somewhat slightly covered this, but after palworld got popular, they split that patent into child patents which lets you specify further what each feature means, however, it will still be effective back when the parent patent was effective. he describes it as a malicious move that is purposefully gaming the system.
In recent years I have been becoming more and more dissatisfied with Nintendo as a whole and this doesn't help. Regardless of if you like palworld or not, Nintendo in Japan is overly protecting their IP. The way they think is very different than how others overseas might think. So to them, they are not doing anything malicious, all they are doing is protecting their IP in any way possible, which is potentially killing any sort of new innovation. something that came from DragonQuest before them.
Surely their patents have expired by now? Original pokemon came out in 1996, the patents associated with it should be almost a decade expired; this is true of any patents filing between 1996 and 2004 by the way, so any of their patents from then should be expired based off standard length of term of patents.
@@VaprousIt likely extends the duration by another patent length each time it is done, similar to Disney continually extending their copyrights.
@@impishlyit9780 why comment if you have no idea what you're talking about?
If they win then anybody with a patent can just use derivative patents to patent troll within Japan. It'll be total chaos, all business will essentially be held hostage.
If Nintendo wins Japan loses and Japan will possibly get excluded from the international patent alliance or whatever the hell they officially call it as they just enabled massive fraudulent patent filings.
It's really funny then that they got their start in video games winning a lawsuit from universal because according to universal Donkey Kong was too similar to King Kong.
Same thing happened with the Nemisis system from shadow of mordor games. Now no one can use a mechanic that has enemies grow without you or even adapt to your strategies you spam at them without WB getting an itch in their lawyers
I'm going to patent the concept of jumping into pipes with characters to move them into a different area, your move nintendo.
Do it
There's 2 games I love and played the sh*t out of that had an amazing game mechanic that got patented as well. The Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor/War games. They build this incredible mechanic where (regular) enemies that defeat you become a enemy that can hunt you down, they get their own unique quirks, voice lines, remember how they killed you etc. The Nemesis system. And they decided to patent it. Imagine what kind of cool games we could've had with the Nemesis system. IMAGINE A FROMSOFT GAME WITH THE NEMESIS SYSTEM! Ideas should not be patented, they also shouldn't be blatantly copied, but definitely not patented.
I disagree that an idea shouldn't be blatantly copied. If you come up with a game all of your own, and you feel like lifting that mechanic wholesale would be a huge benefit to it, then I say why not go for it? It's a different animal to plagiarism, I'd say.
I agree with the other guy, you should be able to copy ideas. Why is it not okay to copy the concept of Pokémon? But it is OK for shooters, Racers, strategy and Platformer games to copy each other. Why is Pokémon the only genre that isn't allowed to be copied? Because If the competition were allowed to copy them, it would be a game of which game has more quality, that is a game that Nintendo doesn't want to play. Because that means fewer releases per year (less money) and would require them to try to innovate the genre (Not remove features and resell them in later installments).
"Ideas should not be patented, they also shouldn't be blatantly copied, but definitely not patented." how do you propose enforcement then?
The Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor is a big example of this. A very cool mechanic that has been sitting collecting dust because it was patented even though the company itself doesn't even do anything with it, they just prevent other developers from applying it to their games.
Better take it up with Black Myth: Wukong then, where you catch nearly every boss you kill to be able to transform into all 72 of them! 😅
Unless you throw a ball at the boss to catch it, it doesn't violate the patent nor serve as prior art.
@@SuperSmashDolls Their patent says nothing about a ball, it simply a capture mechanic requiring an item. There are 31+ claims for the patent, when I was going over it the first 19 could be summed up as common game mechanics. FF7 would defeat most of them, the legend of Zelda games from the 80s and 90s could defeat most of them.
Patent mechanics is absurd. This means I can patent how moving the character works, and therefore, any game with movable characters will have to pay me royalties, or else you'll have to code another way to move your characters, basically I'm taking control over how to vector the directional of your character in a general velocity from point A to point B, this means we can't have no more games with movable characters, that's stupid.
it's beyond stupid, it's godawful with INTENT
Patents in software are stupid in general, like how many years ago literary putting multiple program windows on top of each other was a lawsuit (I'm pretty sure)
I see what your saying, but the patent mechanic has to have novelty for it to go through, as in its 'unique', no other games or whatever have/is using that mechanic. So we are safe on that front.
@@TwoWayOrbitalStation If you read Nintendo's patent it basically describes how to throw a projectile in a 3D space. If you shoot an arrow with a bow you are doing the same. This is NOT "unique" it's literally how you throw projectiles in a 3D environment, the only difference is the "capture" thing, but the "capture" thing isn't from Pokemon, there are multiple games predeceasing the capture mechanic.
@@TwoWayOrbitalStationJapanese patent law is different. That's the issue.
US PTO switched from first to invent to first to file back in 2013, so it no longer matters if something is in public or not. All that matters is who files for the patent first.
As best I can tell, the real reasons for this change is perfectly on display here. Bug corpos can now retroactively file patents after their product has become threatened by a small company that can’t afford or didn’t think to file a patent. Also, it significantly reduces record keeping requirements because date logged engineering note books no longer have any relevance
Edit: I missed the part about Japanese court. But checked and Japan is a first to file country too
Video game patents shouldnt be allowed at all
I feel like software patents in general only exist to stifle innovation and competition. I think that people should only be allowed to patent physical inventions that they made, through research and development, not concepts that anyone could come up with and make work on an afternoon on any half modern computer.
@SergioEduP Exactly. The world of software patents is 99.9% obvious crap anyone would be able to replicate without the patent document.
Patents are supposed to be about preserving and disseminating technological progress.
In exchange for publicly describing how to do [Thing] in a document, the patent holder gets temporary exclusive rights on doing [Thing].
When the workings of [Thing] is obvious to anyone with 2 braincells, the patent is only benefitting the holder who gets to bully others around for daring to put 2 and 2 together.
mb patents shouldnt be existed at all ? then there will be more stimulus to innovate constantly
@@eraser0artem The patent system needs to be reformed. I don't know what it should look like, but as it exists right now it seems to do more harm than good.