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Nintendo Patents Gameplay Mechanic From 1996

News Sep 14, 2025

The uncontested patent registration could have wide-ranging impacts for the entire gaming industry.


Nintendo has registered a patent on a gameplay feature which boils down to the pokemon battle mechanic first introduced in Pocket Monsters Green & Red way back in 1996.

Originally submitted back in March 2023, it seems to have gone through uncontested, which now essentially gives Nintendo exclusive use of this mechanic for twenty years (even though it's been nearly 30 years since they first released a game using it).

The patent grant comes in the context of the company's ongoing battle with the devs of Palworld - this patent grant is sure to give them significantly more ammunition to fight that fight. But there's plenty more games over the years that have used these same mechanics, so it's interesting to see what impact this will have on the industry at large.

Patents are weird. They exist to recognise and protect the significant amount of research, testing and toil that companies or individuals go through in developing novel pieces of equipment, or techniques, that sort of stuff. There's an argument to be had over whether or not they should apply to gameplay features in games at all.

Certainly Nintendo seems to think so - and it remains to be seen how far they will push this on games they view to be in violation of the patent.

In my opinion, the weaponisation of patents is to the detriment of the video game industry and community at large, and I'd hope that Nintendo exercise caution in how they choose to exercise their rights on this one.

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Bob Dendry

Bob Dendry is the owner and admin of Fediverse.Games. When he's not managing way too many online services, he fosters rescue greyhounds, tinkers with Lego and makes the occasional Let's Play video.