Patented Game Mechanics: Documented Cases With Dates

This page lists documented patent disputes and grants around game mechanics, with dates and sources, as of 2 November 2026. It gives no verdict on any mechanic, and nothing here says that a mechanic is free to use, safe or patent-free.

How should you read this page?

An entry records what a document or a report says about one patent or one dispute. A granted patent may be invalid. A rejected claim may come back amended. An ended term says nothing about other patents or other countries. We describe what a patent is about in general terms, and the exact scope lies in its claims. For the rules behind this, see Can you patent a game mechanic?

What is the status of Nintendo v. Pocketpair?

As of 2 November 2026 the case is reported as pending before the Tokyo District Court, and we found no report of a judgment, an injunction or a settlement. The next reported date is 9 November 2026, when the court is expected to share its preliminary views.

Date	Event	Basis
19 Jan 2024	Palworld enters early access	Siarasia
2024	Applications for the three later-asserted patents: 26 Feb, 5 Mar and 30 Jul. They are divisional filings reaching back to an application of 22 Dec 2021	Pocketpair's notice via AUTOMATON; Siarasia
18 Sep 2024	Nintendo and The Pokémon Company sue Pocketpair in the Tokyo District Court for an injunction and damages, announced on 19 Sep	Nintendo
8 Nov 2024	Pocketpair names JP 7545191, JP 7493117 and JP 7528390, and says each plaintiff claims 5 million yen plus late-payment damages	AUTOMATON
Nov 2024	Patch v0.3.11 changes how creatures are summoned	AUTOMATON
May 2025	Patch v0.5.5 changes gliding	AUTOMATON
Early 2025	Pocketpair files non-infringement and invalidity arguments	Siarasia, EVORIX, citing media reports
Nov 2025	The plaintiffs limit the case to older versions of the game	AUTOMATON, from court records, and games fray
1 Oct 2026	Scheduled session. AUTOMATON calls it a technical briefing, games fray a presentation of evidence	Reports of court records
9 Nov 2026	Scheduled disclosure of the court's preliminary views	AUTOMATON, games fray

Three points of caution:

• We found no report of what happened on 1 October 2026. The newest report we found, from MEDIAMIXI on that day, was written before the outcome.
• The 9 November step is not a judgment. MEDIAMIXI reports that under the court's published model such views are given in non-public proceedings, so their content may not become known at once. Some sites call this date a ruling, which the reports based on court records do not support.
• EVORIX says a figure of 500 million yen that circulates online is not supported by the primary sources. It also describes a reported invalidity request at the Japan Patent Office as unconfirmed.

We have not seen court documents ourselves. The dates come from reports based on court records, and they should be checked again after 9 November.

What is happening with the summoning patent in the US?

US Patent 12,403,397 belongs to Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. Its claims concern a sub character that appears on a field and fights in one of two ways. It is a separate patent family from the three Tokyo patents, according to Siarasia, and EVORIX says the US proceeding has no direct legal effect on the Japanese case. Siarasia reported no US lawsuit as of July 2026.

Date	Event	Basis
1 Mar 2023	Application filed	Google Patents
2 Sep 2025	Patent granted	Google Patents
3 Nov 2025	USPTO Director John Squires orders ex parte reexamination on his own initiative, citing a Konami and a Nintendo publication	MBHB, games fray
25 Mar 2026	First Office Action in reexamination 90/020,162: all 26 claims rejected as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103. It is non-final	MBHB, games fray
25 Jun 2026	Response date without extension fee, according to MBHB	MBHB
25 Sep 2026	Latest response date with extension fees, according to MBHB	MBHB

We found no public report of a Nintendo response or of any later USPTO action, and the USPTO's Patent Center record did not display for us. Google Patents still shows the patent as active, but it describes that status as an assumption and not a legal conclusion.

Some headlines said the patent was revoked. The March 2026 action is non-final, and an adverse final decision could still be appealed to the Federal Circuit, according to games fray.

What happened to the related Japanese applications?

Two later applications in the same family are often mixed up with the patents in the lawsuit.

• Application 2024-031879. The Japan Patent Office sent a notice of reasons for refusal on 17 October 2025, citing a lack of inventive step (EVORIX). Reports at the time called this a rejection. A notice of this kind is not final. Google Patents lists the application as granted on 24 February 2026 as JP 7819228, and Siarasia gives 11 March 2026 as the registration date.
• Application 2026-019762. This touchscreen-focused application received a notice on 24 April 2026 and a decision of refusal in July 2026. The EU IP Helpdesk gives 7 July, while games fray links a file dated 15 July. The refusal relied partly on a 2013 video of a fan game, and the office rejected the argument that the video could not be used because the fan game allegedly infringed copyright. The applicants could request an appeal within three months. We found no report on whether they did. The EU IP Helpdesk notes that the refusal does not invalidate the patents in the lawsuit and does not decide whether Palworld infringes them.

What other cases are documented?

Nintendo v. Colopl (Japan, 2018 to 2021). Nintendo sued over the mobile game known as Shironeko Project or White Cat Project, alleging infringement of at least five patents. Anime News Network reported an initial demand of 4.4 billion yen, raised to 9.6 billion yen in April 2021. Nintendo announced a settlement on 4 August 2021 and said the details were confidential. Anime News Network reported a payment of 3.3 billion yen that also covered a future licence, so the two accounts differ on what is public.

Gree v. Supercell (US, from 2019). In the Eastern District of Texas, a jury found on 18 September 2020 that Supercell infringed at least one claim of the five asserted patents, and it awarded 8.5 million dollars. Before that, the court had denied a motion arguing that the patents were ineligible under Alice. In parallel, the Federal Circuit invalidated part of US 9,597,594 in November 2020 and upheld a board decision against another Gree patent on 10 May 2021. We could not establish how the dispute finally ended, so this entry stops at those dates.

Sega v. Fox Interactive, Electronic Arts and Radical (US, 2003). Filed on 4 December 2003 in the Northern District of California over a driving game and US 6,200,138. Its claims include moving pedestrians out of a danger area around a vehicle. Patent Arcade reports a settlement in private mediation before the court construed the claims, so the case set no precedent.

Namco, US 5,718,632. Filed on 27 November 1995 and granted on 17 February 1998, on loading a small auxiliary game before the main game. Google Patents lists the anticipated expiration as 27 November 2015. We found no lawsuit on this patent.

Warner Bros., US 10,926,179. Granted on 23 February 2021 for a system in which events between an avatar and non-player characters change those characters. Google Patents lists a filing date of 25 March 2016, with a provisional application of 26 March 2015. Patent Arcade reports that the application was rejected and revised six times before allowance. We found no lawsuit on this patent.

Activision, US 9,789,406. Filed on 14 May 2015 and granted on 17 October 2017, on matchmaking to drive in-game purchases. A press report at the time quoted an Activision representative as saying that the filing was exploratory and had not been implemented in a game. We found no lawsuit on this patent.

What does this page not cover?

It is a selection of well-documented cases and not a complete list. We do not search patent databases for you, and we do not map patents to the mechanics in this library. If we learn of an error, we correct it and change the date at the bottom of the page.