US Patent Office chief orders reexamination of Nintendo's controversial “summon a character and have it battle” Pokémon patent, which IP lawyers claim “further undermines the credibility of its case against Palworld”

The head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has ordered a reexamination of Nintendo's controversial “summon a character and have it battle” Pokémon patents after heavy criticism from intellectual property lawyers.

September, Intellectual property lawyers criticize the U.S. patent system and the USPTO after Nintendo was granted a Pokémon patent for summoning a character and having it fight.

game conflict reported that Patent number 12,403,397Known as the “397” patent, which was granted to Nintendo “without any objection” by the USPTO, the company is embroiled in Ongoing litigation with Pocketpair's Palworld.

While the patent summarizes how the Pokémon games work, whereby you summon Pokémon to battle other Pokémon in hopes of adding them to your collection, there are countless other games using similar mechanics, such as Persona, Digimon, and even Elden Ring, depending on how the patent is interpreted.

IP expert at the time Florian Muller speaks on social media Video game patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon says Nintendo 'shouldn't have' got 'summoning a character and making it fight' patent in the first place computer gamer “These claims are absolutely unacceptable.”

Now, game conflict Donald Trump nominee John A. Squires, who only became director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in September, reportedly personally ordered the reexamination after he “determined that substantial new patentability issues arise with respect to certain claims raised by the patent.”

Here's how Squires describes the claims:

“The claims issued by the '397 patent relate to controlling the movement of a player character in a field in a virtual space so that a sub-character appears in the field, controlling combat in a manual mode when an enemy character appears at the location where the sub-character appears, automatically moving the sub-character when the enemy character does not exist at the location where the sub-character appears, and controlling combat in an automatic mode when the enemy character is placed at a designated location.”

In his order, Squires pointed to two older U.S. patent applications – one filed by Konami in 2002 and another filed by Nintendo itself in 2019 – as “prior art” references. Squires said both “are important in determining whether a claim is patentable,” and each “raises a significant new question about patentability.”

Mueller, writing in Games Fray, said Squires' order was prompted by “public outrage over the patent issuance” and concerns about the overall reputation of the U.S. patent system. While this reexamination is not a revocation order, Mueller maintained that it is now “highly likely” that the USPTO will revoke Nintendo's '397 patent. Nintendo has two months to respond.

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