A GTA 5 Mod From 8 Years Ago Might Assist Palworld Dev Against Nintendo's Lawsuit

In an unexpected turn of events, a GTA 5 mod created eight years ago might provide some assistance to Pocketpair, the developer of the popular monster-taming game Palworld, who is working to defend itself against a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. 

Ryo Arashida, a patent attorney from a Japan-based Patent Attorney Corporation, notes that one of the three patents involved in the lawsuit may be deemed invalid by the court (first quoted by the Nikkei Business Online Edition and translated by Automaton). This is because a 2016 mod that introduced a crossover between GTA 5 and Pokémon featured mechanics of throwing ball-like items to capture characters. This mechanic closely resembles the No. 7545191 patent, which was filed a few years after the release of the mod.

As soon as Palworld became a hit upon its release, predictions of lawsuits from gaming giant Nintendo began to emerge due to the gameplay of throwing Pal Spheres to catch Pals. To many's surprise, the lawsuit didn't arrive until September. It turned out that Nintendo was making early preparations for the case, registering subdivisional patents to their parent patent registered earlier. 

Earlier this month, in a public statement, Pocketpair disclosed the three Japanese patents that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company accused the Palworld developer of infringing on, which are No. 7545191, No. 7493117, and No. 7528390. All of them were registered a few months after Palworld's launch, in May, July, and August. 

If the indie studio loses the lawsuit, it would have to pay 10 million yen, around $65,000 USD, plus "late payment damages" to Nintendo and The Pokémon Company and stop selling Palworld in Japan.

Don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.