It has been a rough few days to be Nintendo’s legal team. The US Patent and Trademark Office has rejected Nintendo’s key “summon character to fight” patent – the very one widely seen as the cornerstone of its lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair. And as if on cue, Pocketpair has responded by filing a trademark for something called “Palworld Online.”
The Patent That Just Fell Apart
The USPTO issued a non-final rejection of Nintendo’s patent covering the mechanic of summoning a creature and having it fight on the player’s behalf. All 26 claims in the patent were rejected outright – not on a technicality, but because the examiner ruled them “obvious” based on mechanics that have existed in games since the PS2 era.
That is a significant blow. Nintendo has two months to respond to the rejection, and it can file amended claims or argue against the examiner’s reasoning. But having every single claim thrown out is not a gentle warning – it is the USPTO telling Nintendo that what it is trying to protect was not novel enough to patent in the first place.
Nintendo has already spent roughly ¥6.414 billion – just under $41 million – in litigation expenses over the 12-month period ending March 2026. The lawsuit was filed at the Tokyo District Court and the case has been grinding along with no verdict in sight, with both sides still actively arguing over whether infringement occurred and whether the patents themselves are even valid.
Nintendo Is Still Trying – and Failing
The rejection of the summon patent is not Nintendo’s only recent setback. The company has also been attempting to secure a new touchscreen-specific patent on monster capturing – an application broadly interpreted as an attempt to target Palworld Mobile. That application has so far also been unsuccessful, with the patent office yet to grant it.
The picture that is emerging is one of Nintendo struggling to build a legally solid case, spending tens of millions of dollars in the process, while Pocketpair continues to operate the game freely and grow its player base.
Enter: Palworld Online
Timing, as they say, is everything. Just days after the patent rejection made headlines, it emerged that Pocketpair filed trademarks for “Palworld Online” in both the United States (April 27) and South Korea (April 24). The filings include a dedicated logo – this is not a placeholder name, it appears to be a real product being actively developed.
What “Palworld Online” actually is remains unconfirmed. Speculation ranges from a full standalone MMO to a rebranding of the game’s existing multiplayer component – similar to how Grand Theft Auto Online functions as a live-service extension of its parent game. It could also simply be branding tied to the game’s anticipated version 1.0 release, which is expected sometime in 2026.
What is clear is that Pocketpair is not slowing down. Despite an active lawsuit from one of gaming’s most powerful legal departments, they are expanding the Palworld brand. Whatever Nintendo’s lawyers make of that, the message is hard to miss.
