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Nintendo, The Pokémon Company Sue Palworld Game Developer Pocketpair
posted on by Anita Tai
Nintendo announced on Thursday that it and The Pokémon Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair, the game developer behind the Palworld game, the day before.
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 is investigating a possible copyright infringement by an unnamed game company.
Update: Link to The Pokémon Company's statement added.
Sources: Nintendo, The Pokemon Company
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history