Nintendo, alongside The Pokémon Company, has officially filed a lawsuit against Palworld’s developer Pocketpair many have expected since the indie game launched in January.
Pocketpair’s in deep water after Nintendo and The Pokémon Company finally took legal action against the Palworld developer by filing a patent infringement lawsuit on Sept. 18. “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,” Nintendo announced in a short statement shared on Sept. 18.
This comes eight months after Palworld released. Despite the game’s massive success, many gamers could not overlook the strong resemblance between certain Pals and Pokémon, calling it out right from the start. For example, one of the biggest offenders in Palworld is Verdash, who looks like a fusion of two Pokémon: Gen VIII Fire Starter Cinderace and the Grass Eeveelution, Leafeon.
The Pokémon Company previously announced in January it would be investigating Palworld for possible infringement, and now it’s finally come to a lawsuit. It’s unclear how this will affect Pocketpair and Palworld moving forward.
“Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years,” the company stated today.
At the time of writing, Pocketpair has yet to respond to the Nintendo lawsuit.
This story is being updated…
