Palworld Developer Responds to Nintendo, The Pokémon Company’s Lawsuit

Pocketpair, the game developer behind the Palworld game, released a statement on its website on September 19, regarding the patent infringement lawsuit filed against the company by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. The company also posted the full statement on Palworld‘s X (formerly Twitter) account:

The company stated it is “unaware of the specific patents [it is] accused of infringing upon, and [it has] not been notified of such details.” The company stated it will begin legal proceedings and investigations into the claims.

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed the patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair at the Tokyo District Court on September 18.

The suit claims that the game infringes on Nintendo and The Pokémon Company‘s patent rights, and seeks an injunction against infringement as well as compensation for damages.

Sony Music Entertainment Japan Inc. announced in July that it and its subsidiary Aniplex, along with Pocketpair, have established a new joint venture named Palworld Entertainment.

Pocketpair debuted its Palworld multiplayer survival game on January 19 as a Steam Early Access game. The game reached 25 million users within a month of its release.

Players and critics initially noted the similarity of the designs of many of the game’s “Pal” creatures to the Pokémon franchise‘s titular Pokémon. The Pokémon Company released a statement shortly after Palworld’s release that it was investigating a possible copyright infringement by an unnamed game company.

Sources: Pocketpair’s website, Palworld game’s X/Twitter account