Last week, Japan’s Patent Office (JPO) published a notice of rejection of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s divisional patent application No. 2026-019762. This application detailed an “in-game monster-capturing system” and is closely linked to the ongoing legal dispute with Palworld developer Pocketpair, which explains why the rejection has drawn so much attention.
Interestingly, Japanese users have noted the unusually harsh language the JPO’s examiner used when responding to Nintendo’s counterarguments. People have been sharing their favorite quotes from this legal exchange. Patent professionals, such as Japanese attorney Kiyoshi Kurihara, have also commented that both Nintendo’s objections and the examiner’s response contained elements rarely seen in typical patent proceedings.
One of the main reasons for the patent’s rejection was a YouTube gameplay video from 2013 showcasing the indie fan game Pokémon Generations. The JPO initially cited gameplay mechanics in this video, arguing that they demonstrated a lack of inventive step in Nintendo’s application. The office described elements like “selecting a Poké Ball at the bottom right of the screen causes Ash to throw it; if it hits Pikachu, Pikachu can be captured.”
However, Nintendo strongly disputed these claims in its counterargument, insisting that the game and its characters infringed on its copyrights. They argued that the JPO’s examiner “acted extremely inappropriately by deliberately mischaracterizing an infringing product as though it were an authorized one,” a sentence repeated multiple times in the document.
In the recent rejection notice, the JPO’s examiner dismissed Nintendo’s copyright infringement claims, explaining that under domestic patent law and court precedent, whether an invention infringes on copyright is irrelevant to determining inventive step. The examiner subtly suggested that Nintendo’s stance deviates from “standard thinking for patent practitioners,” and called the interpretation that the examiner acknowledged the fangame as an official Pokémon product a “completely unreasonable misunderstanding.” They added, “The mere possibility that the reasons for rejection could be subject to such an unreasonable misunderstanding has no bearing on the assessment of inventive step.”
Another amusing point in the notice is the examiner’s apparent frustration with Nintendo’s insistence on how the unofficial game and its content were referred to. In its counterarguments, Nintendo stated, “Ash, Pikachu, and Poké Ball should properly be referred to as ‘a character infringing upon Ash,’ ‘a character infringing upon Pikachu,’ and ‘a character infringing upon Poké Balls,’ respectively.”
The examiner responded, “If it were impermissible for the reasons for rejection to refer to character names, then even at the cost of being redundant, accuracy should take precedence. In that case, the notice would need to use cumbersome descriptions such as ‘an object in the form of a small animal’ instead of Pokémon, ‘an object in the form of a boy wearing a red cap’ instead of Ash, ‘an object in the form of a small yellow animal’ instead of Pikachu, ‘an object in the form of a small green animal’ instead of Bulbasaur, and ‘a spherical object with a red upper half and a white lower half’ instead of Poké Ball. However, even with such rephrasing, the logical structure of the grounds for refusal remains unchanged. Therefore, this argument has no bearing on determining inventive step.”
Another objection from Nintendo claimed that the Pokémon Generations video was “merely a video,” meaning the examiner couldn’t extract the technical elements of the invention from it. The examiner seemed confused by this argument, suggesting it might imply one of two things: either Nintendo acknowledges the video is genuine gameplay but doesn’t believe footage alone can disclose technical features, or Nintendo doubts the video is actual gameplay and thinks it’s an animated video with added narration. The examiner quickly dismissed both possibilities, noting that in the second scenario, “the uploader’s behavior would be way too preposterous.”
Despite these points, the JPO’s notice did not accept Nintendo’s objections, and the patent rejection stands. Nintendo now has three months to file a petition for a trial against the rejection decision with the Commissioner of the JPO. It’s important to note that this rejection doesn’t affect the registered patent currently being used in the Palworld lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court. Instead, it pertains to the JPO’s refusal to grant a separate divisional application within the same patent family.