Late on Wednesday in the US time Zone, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a lawsuit in Japan against Palworld developer PocketPair. The two companies claimed that PocketPair"s survival game " infringes multiple patent rights." They added that Nintendo will "continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights."
Just a few hours after that announcement, PocketPair released its first response to the lawsuit in a blog post on its website. The post says the company has indeed been notified of the legal action made by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. It will start "the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations" into the lawsuit"s claims.
One interesting thing about PocketPair"s notice is that it says that at the moment, it is not aware of the specific patents that it is accused of violating.
The blog post added:
Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.
It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.
The blog post concluded with PocketPair offering an apology to its fans "for any worry or discomfort" that has been generated by this lawsuit. It also thanked those fans for their support of the company and of Palworld.
Of course, this is just the first round of statements from these parties, and more will likely come over the coming months as the legal actions move forward.