Nintendo Is Suing Palworld Devs

Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, the developer behind Palworld, alleging infringement of patent rights.

According to a press release, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed the lawsuit today, September 18 in the Tokyo District Court. “This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights,” the press release said.

“Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.”

Back in January, Nintendo said that it intended to investigate Palworld, saying that it would take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on IP rights related to Pokemon. However, in June, Pocketpair said that it still hadn’t heard anything from Nintendo or faced any legal action.

That has now changed with Nintendo’s lawsuit against Pocketpair. The game has been massively successful, with 12 million copies sold on Steam so far. Pocketpair has plans to continue Palworld, including partnering up with Sony Music Entertainment to expand the Palworld business, as well as potentially adding microtransactions.