Patent Panic vs. Reality: Understanding Nintendo’s Pokémon Mechanics Claim

Recently, everyone seems to talk about Nintendo’s controversial patent on a Pokémon mechanics. A common misconception seems to be that Nintendo now has a monopoly on the creature taming genre or autobattling.

It is important to remember that Nintendo only has a valid claim in the event that the mechanic that you have included in your game meets the description of the patent word-for-word.

US patent 12,403,397 has a very specific sequence of elements which are protected:

1.     You move a player character in a virtual space;
2.     You must be able to summon a character other than the player character (which is called a ‘sub character’);
3.     When you summon the sub character in a place where there is already an enemy character, then a battle sequence starts which is based on operation inputs by the player (which is called the first mode in the patent);
4.     When you summon the sub character in a place where there is not an enemy character, then the game automatically controls the sub character (which is called the second mode in the patent);
5.     The player can provide certain commands to move the sub character;
6.     When the sub character encounters an enemy character in this way, an automatic battle proceeds.

The description of the mechanic in the patent and the images that have been included, make it very clear that it is actually a description of the ‘Let’s Go’ mechanic in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet:

1.     When you throw the Pokéball of one of your Pokémon near a wild Pokémon, a battle sequence starts. The player fully controls this battle by giving commands to your Pokémon;
2.     When you throw the Pokéball in an area where there is no wild Pokémon present, the Pokémon is automatically controlled by the computer, but you can still order it to charge in the direction of a wild Pokémon. If they cross paths, an auto battle starts and the result is automatically calculated shared via the user interface.

This combination of mechanics is rather niche. People should not be worried that a autobattling system or a character summoning mechanic is now exclusively for Nintendo. There is also way too much prior art for that and any such patent would be invalidated.

Discussions about whether the patent should have been awarded, are valid.
Discussions about whether the legal uncertainty of abstract and vague patent descriptions are harmful to the industry, are valid.

However, let’s all be clear: Nintendo did not catch the genre in a Master Ball.