Nintendo now has a US patent on summoning characters and making them battle for you

[PSVitaForever]

"Nexomon Extinction" comes to mind, somewhat a Pokemon clone, a game we've enjoyed MORE than P. and that I really recommend if you're into genre: no two versions, no (paid) online to trade creatures because everything is in one game, colourful graphics similar to but way better than pearl (we played them at around the same time some years ago), a huge free update that added new monsters and new areas post-game. Only downside? No minimap, but for the trickier parts we followed a video.

 

[Yousef]

Nintendo will soon patent the concept of breathing so it would sue everyone who breathes oxygen

 

[nobitakun]

I love news like these. When I die the gaming world will be so fucked up by Nintendo that I couldn't care less, I will be dead. And I won't care because the ones to blame are us, people who buy Nintendo stuff and fanboys who promote hate in this industry by blindly supporting a company that is literally a poop.

Because of that, I will smile when I start ceasing to exist, as the world has no hope of being fixed at all.

 

[Rox00]

Nintendo as always doing the most Nintendo moves of all time. Give it some time before they begin owning real patents like the idea of jumping in a platformer and using a sword and shield as a tool for combat purposes.

 

[χKai]

Yeah well what if I just put a patent on breathing
Stop breathing my air, dammit

 

[Burzuru]

Patents on creative concepts are bad for creatives, bad for the industry and bad for consumers.
Patent law in general has been in dire need of an overhaul for decades now, this kind of thing should never even be possible in the first place.

I rarely agree with the overwhelming hatred Nintendo is getting these days, but this is genuinely messed up.
It was awful when Warner Bros. patented the Nemesis system and killed it as a concept before it could even really be explored and it's just as awful now that Nintendo is doing it.

patents should not exists. and if they do then they should not be respected by anyone or any court.

 

[qw90700]

patents should not exists. and if they do then they should not be respected by anyone or any court.

Then imagine people steal your artwork and make money. Does it make sense? lol

However there can be a limit on what can be a subject of a patent. When an idea may be novel but it causes hinderence and it's not really a creative idea it may be refused to become a patent: For example games in loading screens. This shit is no big deal anyway and its existence and absence doesn't cause any big deal to anything. But when you go Nintendo way to limit what kind of game companies can develop this causes a BS actually. Ironically it can cause unfair trading. Such an idea is not "so creative", the PC remake of version of Ni No Kuni is like that and if I knew better perhaps I can find many games like that and many games that can be like that so it's a BS justification to cause hindrance to the industry.

Nintendo took the route of claiming patents for each of their games they can. Seeing this if other companies start to do the same then it will only make the whole industry eat each other and even kill indie industry alongside with it while only few companies and indie developers can find "too different" idea to release a game legally that doesn't trigger a patent or 100 to make money or what they will release will be abominations just because it's what they can. The bad thing is law is too "backwards" so they wouldn't care about video game industry enough to actually care how a patent actually can kill the whole industry for there are no decent laws regarding it around the world, and American laws are worse about it due to too much freedom on patents.

But this patent hell scenario is not doom on creation. For example a company or a person can license whatever they want to do by having permission from whatever has the patent or it, but in this senario having to pay for licenses from so many stuff to avoid tons of patents are too much cost to wanna pay just to make money. Either way it's a risk for the industry. Nintendo seem to go kamikaze in a way "either I'll be the last one standing or everyone including me goes to hell with it" lol.

 

[JG5009]

I really don't get what kind of thing they saw on Palworld that made them feel such fear that this things are still being done to suffocate it even further.

Meanwhile Game Freak still has the same incompetent people at charge that are the sole reason of why anything they do nowadays looks like outdated slop and big N's has a big degree of responsibility on that, yet they turn a blind eye and do this instead, pettiness is such a destructive motivator...

 

[Ferik]

Nintendo is the company that saved gaming in the 80s, made it accessible to casuals with the Wii, gave us the biggest gaming icon in Mario, revolutionized handheld gaming, and had everyone pumped for the Switch 2 despite all of the crap that's been going on in the gaming industry for years now.

With every new NIntendo news story in 2025 it's like:

Nintendo has always been like this don't kid yourself. They've been pulling legal stunts ever since they got into games. They've been sued for stealing tech multiple times such as the Wiimote's IR setup, they sued GameGenie for existing, they sued Blockbuster for making photocopies of the controls pages of game manuals, they stabbed Sony in the back over the SNES CD addon which directly lead to both the PlayStation being made as revenge and the CDi getting access to Mario and Zelda characters, they've stolen ad revenue from Youtubers.

They have never been the good guys they merely had better optics before the internet made it easy to spread their horrible tactics around.

 

[qw90700]

I really don't get what kind of thing they saw on Palworld that made them feel such fear that this things are still being done to suffocate it even further.

I take no side in corporate BS but many people thought there is an undeniable "stealing idea" situations going on in design of monsters in Palworld that pretty much Pokemon designs. People were machinegunning side by side comparison around. When it's like that naturally Nintendo would wanna protect their stuff.

There are other "Pokemon-like" games that Nintendo is ok with and even sell them on their console without an issue because these games does their own thing, but what Palworld looks like is stealing from Nintendo to make money in intentional way. The way the game got popular and then they making an agreement with Sony to sell Palworld monster toys were all nail to the coffin. Nintendo saw it as people stealing from them and they make money unfairly.

Considering Nintendo operates as a terror organization like run by gang members lol naturally this outcome was so expected in Pocketpair Discord servers, even in Craftopia servers (which me and homies had back then for Craftopia meetings) people all said Nintendo will sue them and Pocketpair guys honestly didn't give a fuck lol. It seemed like they intentionally steal these designs and all without giving a shit about it. When the situation is like this if I was Nintendo I would wanna destroy Pocketpair too not gonna lie lol. So people had concerns that Nintendo would win a legal battle about it so people didn't wanna buy Palworld and stop following it because everyone thought the game would be shutdown. Then after like a year or so Nintendo took legal action lol.

 

[Segadude113]

so, let's say i'm playing a game as Necromancer. if i send my skeleton to battle, is it patent infringement?

What if i summon an Esper with a crystal?

 

[kuroninneko]

I wonder what this means for indies. They should all get together and make a bunch of little monster battler games and see if Nintendo tries to sue all of them

 

[qw90700]

I wonder what this means for indies. They should all get together and make a bunch of little monster battler games and see if Nintendo tries to sue all of them

Nintendo would and it would be like you pour tons of fish on a cat!!! lolol

 

[JG5009]

I take no side in corporate BS but many people thought there is an undeniable "stealing idea" situations going on in design of monsters in Palworld that pretty much Pokemon designs. People were machinegunning side by side comparasion around. When it's like that naturally Nintendo would wanna protect their stuff.

Yeah, that does make a lot of sense, seems like yet another case of dumbasses kicking the wasp colony then.

 

[Miles Miles]

Summoning characters is a generic mechanic in games. How did Nintendo patent that?
What next? Nintendo patents jumping in video games?

 

[Segadude113]

Summoning characters is a generic mechanic in games. How did Nintendo patent that?
What next? Nintendo patents jumping in video games?

Sonic is screwed then. lol

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

Are Digimon games screwed?

I think it is safe .
You dont summon the digimons because those are always there with the digi-tamer and you just get one or few which game allows and is designed for.

You only summon atleast eggs but its not a monster till they hatch .

 

[Segadude113]

I think it is safe .
You dont summon the digimons because those are always there with the digi-tamer and you just get one or few which game allows and is designed for.

You only summon atleast eggs but its not a monster till they hatch .

What if they pull some crap like Digivolving is like Pokemon evolving or Mega Evolutions?

 

[Zeo]

The only "summon" that comes with Digimon was those in Re:Digitize. The memory chips where you can summon your "death" digimons and use them as finishers in normal battles or directly in the arena with their stats, moves and everything

But thats another story too

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

I hate those patent idiocies about concepts overall. It was the same with koemi-tecmo and their "1000 enemies on the screen "- patent which restricted game-development way too much already back then when the musou-games became popular . They just feared that someone could make a much better game and have actual competition .

I can understand saving IPs with copyrights (to an extend) but this patent about concepts screams monopoly-romance around the globe .

Nintendo lost all my respect right now .

Post automatically merged: Today at 12:49 AM

What if they pull some crap like Digivolving is like Pokemon evolving or Mega Evolutions?

Then Bandai can go against it with their patent of Digimon and their Tamagotchi roots of Digivolution which Nintendo cant touch . Digivolutions have their own rules and the evolution goes either back to the rookie status like in the animes or stay constant through other rules for different kind of tamers or wild digimons .

 

[Tonberry]

How did Nintendo patent that?

I mean, they didn’t?
Ferik’s post outlines it more clearly.