I just found out Nintendo and The Pokemon Company are suing Pocketpair (Palworld). This was kind of expected, but what was not expected was that they would do it over patent infringement.
I had no clue this was even a thing, but it turns out mechanics like the Nemesis System in Shadow of Mordor and the Objective Arrow in Crazy Taxi are also patented.
How do we have entire genres made of games with such similar and obviously inspired mechanics.
Could Live Service and loot boxes be patented as well? Asking partly as a joke, but considering how valuable some companies think these ideas are I am also asking out of confusion and ignorance.
In: Technology
Anything from games over around 20 years old is safe because that’s how long patents last.
Anything from a game who didn’t patent the ideas is safe because that game becomes prior art and other people aren’t allowed to patent stuff that already exists (not that this always stops them, but the older game can be used as defense in court).
So for just the idea of a “live service” or “loot box” those can’t be patented in a general sense because they already exist.
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