A new US patent has given Nintendo the exclusive ability to summon characters to fight for you in a video game and it doesn’t just apply to Pokémon.
The ability to patent gameplay mechanics has always seemed absurd to ordinary gamers but while what is and isn’t allowed often seems arbitrary, especially in the US, it is something that happens – forcing developers to find workarounds or just avoid some gameplay mechanics entirely.
The most famous example is probably the Nemesis system from Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor and its sequel, which now that developer Monolith Productions has been shut down may never see the light of day again. But there are many others, from the Ping system in Apex Legends to the dialogue wheel from BioWare’s Mass Effect.
Nintendo also have many patents (including one for their original D-pad, which is why everyone else’s looks different) but the one they’ve just been granted in the US could have a serious, negative effect on games from other developers.
Publishers will always try their luck with a patent, just to see if it’s granted, but in this case Nintendo is purposefully trying to shore up its legal case against blatant Pokémon clone Palworld, from Japanese developer Pocketpair.
What is the Nintendo summons patent?
That’s led to it registering a lot of new Pokémon related patents lately and the most recent to be granted, without an objection from the US patent office, covers ‘summoning a character and letting it fight another.’
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In the context of Pokémon that means that only Nintendo can allow the main player character to summon another ‘sub-character’ and have them fight for them. That immediately rules out any other Pokémon-like game from using a similar system, from newer indie titles like Temtem and Cassette Beasts to long-standing rivals like Digimon.
However, the description is broad enough that it technically includes any game with summoning in it, which is a very common mechanic in Japanese role-players in particular. Indeed, the original Pokémon games were themselves, in most respects, just standard turn-based role-players.
The patent doesn’t mean any game immediately becomes illegal, as Pokémon would have to prove in court that the patent had been infringed.
As everyone knows, Nintendo has very capable lawyers, but it won’t want to spend time and money chasing after every role-playing game just because it can – not least because that would involve ruining their relationship with publishers and developers that are normally allies and partners.
They’ll definitely go after Pocketpair though – who have already changed aspects of Palword to placate Nintendo – and may well take on direct Pokémon clones like Temtem, especially since indie developers won’t be able to afford much in the way of lawyers and the patent is very explicit.
Why was the Nintendo summons patent granted?
Given how much Nintendo likes suing people, the situation not only threatens existing games but will discourage developers from including similar mechanics in new titles.
Talking to PC Gamer, video game patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon described the situation – and Nintendo’s recent spate of anti-Palworld patents – as ‘an embarrassing failure of the US patent system’.
According to him, the patent represents, ‘procedural irregularities in the decision-making of US patent officials. And thanks to those irregularities, Nintendo has yet more tools to bully its competitors.’
‘I have no earthly idea how the examiner could, in good faith, allow this application so quickly, added Sigmon. ‘None of the three patents I’ve discussed here should have been allowed. It’s shocking and offensive that they were.’
Again, this isn’t unique to Nintendo. Although this patent went uncontested by the US patent office another recent one, about riding and flying mounts, was queried. But only because Xbox and Tencent already had a similar patent.
The summons one is especially worrying though, because the concept of a summons, in the more general sense, predates Pokémon and is a widely used concept by many companies in the industry.
No one’s going to relish the idea of having to prove that in court though, especially since video games are so poorly understood by those outside the industry – as evidenced by the fact that Nintendo’s summons patent was granted in the first place.
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