{"id":10825,"date":"2025-09-19T12:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T12:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/09\/19\/nintendo-says-mods-dont-count-as-prior-art-as-theyre-not-full-games-attempting-to-sway-judge-in-palworld-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T12:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T12:56:12","slug":"nintendo-says-mods-dont-count-as-prior-art-as-theyre-not-full-games-attempting-to-sway-judge-in-palworld-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/09\/19\/nintendo-says-mods-dont-count-as-prior-art-as-theyre-not-full-games-attempting-to-sway-judge-in-palworld-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Nintendo Says Mods Don&#8217;t Count as &#8216;Prior Art&#8217; as They&#8217;re Not Full Games, Attempting to Sway Judge in Palworld Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"article-page\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets-prd.ignimgs.com\/2024\/01\/31\/palworld-success-1706726794699.jpg\" \/>\n<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\"><\/section>\n<p>User-made mods should not be considered prior art, Nintendo has argued, as part of the company&#8217;s lawsuit against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/games\/palworld\">Palworld<\/a> developer Pocketpair.<\/p>\n<p>Nintendo&#8217;s claim appears to be an attempt at blocking Pocketpair from using popular Pok\u00e9mon mods as evidence that the franchise&#8217;s patented gameplay was already being featured in other games elsewhere. <\/p>\n<p>The argument put forth by Nintendo \u2014 essentially, that mods require a separate base game to function, so therefore are not art by themselves \u2014 has raised eyebrows across the games industry and among Pok\u00e9mon fans alike, with many suggesting it could have far-reaching consequences if accepted by a judge. <\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"ignvideo\" data-slug=\"palworld-official-version-10-pocketpair-and-the-future-update-video\" data-loop=\"\"><\/section>\n<p>Writing in <a href=\"https:\/\/gamesfray.com\/gross-in-palworld-patent-case-nintendo-tells-japanese-judge-mods-should-not-count-as-prior-art-because-they-cant-run-without-underlying-games\/\">Games Fray<\/a>, which first reported the development, games industry reporter and legal analyst Florian Mueller described the suggestion that gameplay ideas or innovations featured in mods were not viable as prior art as something that showed &#8220;utter disregard for the enormous creativity&#8221; of many mod makers. <\/p>\n<p>Additionally, and perhaps more concerning from a legal perspective if accepted, the ruling could potentially open the door to mods being considered &#8220;fair game&#8221; for patent thieves, who could swoop in and incorporate the same ideas into full game releases \u2014 which would then be protected.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Patents are a special monopoly granted by the governments of the world to encourage creative invention,&#8221; business lawyer and creator of the Virtual Legality podcast Richard Hoeg told IGN today. &#8220;If something already exists in the world, some new person is not allowed to claim they invented it and get that protection. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We call everything that already exists &#8216;prior art,&#8217; and it would be ludicrous to exempt any piece of game design from that category simply because of how it&#8217;s stood up in the software. The mechanism for access shouldn&#8217;t really matter. It exists. It makes things like it in the world non-novel and thus not subject to protection. We don&#8217;t give out monopolies to second place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Will Nintendo succeed with its claim? Mueller suggests it is unlikely, as courts typically reject any attempt to narrow what can be considered prior art \u2014 with Nintendo taking an &#8220;extreme position&#8221; here. But time will tell, as the lawsuit shows no sign of winding down.<\/p>\n<p>While Nintendo&#8217;s legal threats continue, Pocketpair is busy putting together Palworld&#8217;s big 1.0 release, due at some point in 2026. In the meantime, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/as-nintendo-and-the-pokmon-companys-patent-lawsuit-rumbles-on-pocketpair-says-its-heads-down-getting-palworld-ready-to-exit-early-access-and-officially-release-ver-10-in-2026\">development will focus on removing &#8220;jank&#8221; from the game<\/a>, communications director and publishing manager John \u201cBucky\u201d Buckley said earlier this week, though a smaller winter update is still planned.<\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"divider\"><\/section>\n<p><em>Tom Phillips is IGN&#8217;s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/tomphillipseg.bsky.social\">@tomphillipseg.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>User-made mods should not be considered prior art, Nintendo has argued, as part of the company&#8217;s lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair. Nintendo&#8217;s claim appears to be an attempt at blocking Pocketpair from using popular Pok\u00e9mon mods as evidence that the franchise&#8217;s patented gameplay was already being featured in other games elsewhere. The argument put forth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nintendo Says Mods Don&#039;t Count as &#039;Prior Art&#039; as They&#039;re Not Full Games, Attempting to Sway Judge in Palworld Lawsuit - Next Level News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stay on top of the gaming world with Next Level News. 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