It’s like in literature if someone could patent the idea of a detective investigating a murder.
How could the "pokemon-like" genre even exist if you couldn’t create a game that uses “summoning and battling characters”?
Even worse, that description alone applies to multiple genres... JRPGs, or even fighting games with multiple characters (something like Marvel vs. Capcom) could fit that description.
I can understand intellectual property rights for very specific technical implementations (for example, the raycasting technique used in Wolfenstein 3D) but you shouldn’t be able to patent the concept of the first person shooter itself. That feels more like restricting freedom of expression.
That being said, if they ever tried to hit anyone with the entirety of that, other than in a case of 1:1 replication of Pokemon, it would be a spurious weapon at best. There's too much prior art + alternative implementations in existence to argue for a unique and inventive mechanic.
It looks like here, they picked minor game mechanics introduced in a later games that Palworld also used (possibly as a coincidence) and then applied for patents. Some of them passed.
My question is whether this patent only covers specific game mechanics introduced in the most recent Pokemon game or whether it's broad enough to monopolize the entire genre. Because if a clone of the original Pokemon from 30 years ago (has it really been that long? I feel old) is infringing, then the patent is clearly invalid due to Nintendo's own prior art.
Like how you "can't" patent stuff with prior art but then, somehow, big companies seem to be granted patents for things with plenty of prior art all the time?
I had thought there was case law along the lines of games have no utility and thus can't have utility patents. Although, perhaps that case was too old, and the rules have changed.
Assuming that games are subject to utility patents, I don't see why you couldn't hold a patent on a genre defining mechanic... But genere defining mechanics for a Pokemon game probably were in the first games from 1996, and afaik the patent backlog isn't that long that they'd be getting a patent today from an application from back then.
It's not surprising that Nintendo wants to patent "summon creatures to fight for you" as a game mechanic, the surprising part is that the patent was granted.
when a dungeons and dragon magic user, uses summon monster, they may engage with these same described mechanics of summon and battle. [orb of monster summoning would be way out ]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
I'm not suggesting that the current patent system works well, but you are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The main text from what I understand is the claims in sections 37 to 41. Claim 1 is what I'm understanding the be the main claim, which can be summarized as summons that can either do manual combat or automatically battle after following a player around/being directed.
The other claims are to be taken individually, correct? If not, claim 10 (requiring attack of sub character and option for capture) would disqualify most non-capture games and would likely make this a non-issue, but if just the first claim needs to stand then this would be really broad (and from what I understand, prior art in that space would be easy to point to).
Are most software patents stupid and overly broad? Yes. Should this one have been granted? No. Is this going to stifle the industry? Highly unlikely.
The article itself is quite low-quality (as usual with articles where the title and subheadline are quotes) and I'd go as far as assume it's probably a PR piece placed by another player in the space.
