Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have continued filing new patents in what appears to be an attempt to strengthen potential US litigation against Pocketpair game Palworld.

At present, Nintendo is only coming after Pocketpair through Japanese courts. However recent patent filings appear to indicate possible future moves in US courts.

As previously reported, Nintendo has been updating and filing patents covering what appears to be basic game mechanics. For instance this patent which covers characters on a playing field throwing objects and summoning “fighting” characters to battle with “field” characters.

In a first mode, an aiming direction in a virtual space is determined based on a second operation input, and a player character is caused to launch, in the aiming direction, an item that affects a field character disposed on a field in the virtual space, based on a third operation input. In a second mode, the aiming direction is determined, based on the second operation input, and the player character is caused to launch, in the aiming direction, a fighting character that fights, based on the third operation input.

Seemingly in response to this patent and the litigation, Palworld removed Pal Spheres from the game in order to reduce their similarity to Pokeballs.

Gamesfray noticed a new patent which was filed earlier this week on February 11, our understanding is it appears to diminish the particulars of the previous patent in order to more broadly cover game mechanics from Palworld.

Nintendo is also pursuing an interview with the patent examiner who recently rejected a majority of a recent patent claim in the US; in particular 22 of the 23 claims made in their filing were rejected. Speculatively, the purpose of this interview is to convince the patent examiner to allow permit more than just 1 claim.

Despite their current difficulties with the Goliath that is Nintendo, Palworld and Pocketpair are keeping apace with new updates, a roadmap for the future, and even opportunities to publish indies.