The legal battle between Nintendo and Palworld is still ongoing, operating at the legal system's usual pace of 'glacial'.
It hasn't all been great news for Pocketpair; in fact, it's been mostly bad so far. With key features being removed from Palworld and Nintendo's patents potentially stepping on other games' toes, there's been little sunlight for Pocketpair — save for the support from gaming communities at large.
But now, another ruling has come in. The fight isn't over, but the titan bleeds. Two of Nintendo's pending patent applications, patents that they hoped would make for good weapons in their case, have been rejected by the Japan Patent Office.
These patents were very closely related — both had close ties to Nintendo's "anti-Palworld 'monster capture' patents" (thanks, Gamesfray) — and were rejected on a non-final basis. So Nintendo's efforts to patent their favorite Pokémon mechanics are not yet dead, but for the moment they certainly look the part.
Why Nintendo's Anti-Palworld Patents Were Rejected
The grounds for rejection, according to a translated rejection letter, state that Nintendo's patents weren't inventive enough. Plenty of examples of 'prior art' show how Nintendo's attempted patents were simply too generic to work properly.
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