The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has moved to re-examine Nintendo’s recently granted patent covering the act of summoning a sub-character to fight. The filing quickly became a hot button issue as Nintendo and The Pokémon Company pursued legal action against Palworld studio Pocketpair. GameFray notes that USPTO director John A. Squires personally initiated the review, an uncommon step, after pointing to earlier patents that may undercut the novelty of Nintendo’s claims.
In the order, Squires writes that he has “determined that substantial new questions of patentability have arisen,” referencing prior publications known as Yabe and Taura, older patents describing scenarios where a companion fights alongside the player, either automatically or under manual input. That framing challenges whether Nintendo’s newly granted US 12,403,397 (filed in 2023, granted September 2025) meaningfully advances the state of the art or is already anticipated by past work.
The review follows weeks of criticism from IP commentators who argued the grant appeared overly broad and insufficiently tested against decades of games with similar mechanics. Reporting has also emphasized how rare it is for a USPTO director to intervene without a third party formally petitioning, a sign that the office wants to stress-test the patent before it cascades into wider enforcement. While the application is discussed through a Pokémon lens, its language is platform-agnostic, which is why developers across genres have watched this case closely.
What happens next is procedural: examiners revisit the claims against cited prior art; Nintendo can amend or argue; and the office may confirm, narrow, or invalidate portions of the patent. For now, nothing changes legally, but the burden of proof has shifted back to the rights holder to showcase why these claims should stand as written.
Bottom line: If prior art holds, expect this patent to be narrowed, reducing risk for look-alike mechanics. If it survives largely intact, Nintendo gains a potent lever in future disputes.
