Nintendo's Touchscreen Monster-Catching Patent Rejected by Japan Patent Office
- Sagar Mankar
- 9 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Nintendo has been denied a patent for Poké Ball-style capture-and-release mechanics on touchscreen devices, dealing another blow to the company's ongoing legal efforts against Palworld developer Pocketpair.
The Japan Patent Office (JPO) reviewed Nintendo's patent application no. 2026-019762 and rejected it on the grounds that it lacked an "inventive step" over prior art. In simple terms, the examiner found nothing technologically original in what Nintendo was trying to protect.
The application was a divisional of a previous patent that already covered general monster-catching mechanics, but this particular filing had a specific "touchscreen" angle to it, covering "a game program executed by a computer of an information processing apparatus equipped with a touch panel."
To understand why Nintendo went down this road, you need a bit of context. The company, alongside The Pokémon Company, filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair back in September 2024, claiming that Palworld infringed multiple patent rights. The legal battle has been slow and messy ever since. As the situation evolved, Nintendo began filing additional patents, seemingly trying to broaden the legal net it could cast over competitors. This latest application appears to have been aimed squarely at touchscreen titles, with Palworld Mobile and Tencent's Roco Kingdom: World being the likely targets, given that both are expected to be available on mobile platforms.
According to the analysis by Games Fray, the new patent essentially described general Pokémon mechanics in broad terms, covering things like using a capture item to trap a field character and then using that character to battle other field characters, all via a touch panel. The JPO examiner was not impressed. The rejection notice put it plainly: "The above is simply a general monster-catching rule set. There is nothing technologically innovative about it."
The examiner backed up the ruling with a solid list of prior art. The cited references included Pokémon Generations gameplay footage from 2013, PUBG Mobile, ARK: Survival Evolved's smartphone version, and various Pokémon X and Y-related pages and YouTube videos. Some of the prior art cited was Nintendo's own publicly available material that predated the priority date of the new application, which makes the rejection even harder to argue against.
On the matter of capturing Pokémon during battle, the examiner noted: "The specification whereby, while an allied Pokémon is battling an opposing Pokémon, a Monster Ball can be thrown to capture the opposing Pokémon is well-known art in games featuring Pokémon." The ruling made clear that adding this to a touchscreen context simply was not novel enough to warrant a patent.
The rejection was officially communicated on April 24, 2026.
It is worth noting that this is not Nintendo's first stumble on this front. A separate Nintendo patent for summoning characters and having them fight was also rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on non-final grounds. That particular case involved a broad two-battle-mode patent, and Nintendo has been granted an extension until late June to respond to the USPTO's rejection.
So what happens next? Nintendo has already amended the claims in this application once before, back in February, and technically has the option to try again. Games Fray's analysis suggests, however, that "it will be an uphill battle for Nintendo," given how well-reasoned the rejection notice was. Nintendo could also try to appeal the decision, though neither path looks particularly smooth at this stage.
What makes all of this more significant is the wider context. The new rejected application belongs to the same patent family as two of the three patents Nintendo is already asserting against the PC and console versions of Palworld. According to Games Fray, this rejection could actually make the revocation of those related patents more likely, which would be a meaningful development in the broader lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Palworld has not been sitting still. Pocketpair has rolled out several updates that distance the game from its Pokémon-adjacent origins, and the developer has already made changes to its ball-throwing creature-capturing system as a result of the ongoing legal pressure. Despite all of that, the lawsuit itself remains active and unresolved.
Palworld Mobile is still slated for a 2026 release, though no specific month has been confirmed. Nintendo clearly wants to have a patent in hand before that happens, but the April 24 rejection is a significant setback to those plans.