Nintendo Was Granted A Patent For Summoning Mechanics

[u/thegta5p]

https://gamesfray.com/last-week-nintendo-and-the-pokemon-company-received-a-u-s-patent-on-summoning-a-character-and-letting-it-fight-another/

I am not sure how over reaching this patent is or how it would be used, but I feel this affects many games including JRPGs. SMT, Persona, and Digimon are franchises I can think of that will be affected by this. This is a threat to the industry since now companies will not be able to take this mechanic and improve upon it. To put it into perspective imagine if ATLUS decided to patent the weakness mechanic from SMT. Or imagine if ATLUS decided to patent social links from Persona. We can go even further and have the hybrid combat seen in the new Trails games be patent by Falcom.

Patent mechanics like this will destroy creativity in the industry. Allowing other companies to reuse existing popular mechanics and putting their own spin on it something that is core to not just JRPGs but to games. This patent alone will affect various JRPG franchises both big and small. Maybe Nintendo will not sue all these companies but it will only take one lawsuit that will effectively prevent anyone from making a game like this. This patent was done in response to palworld, a game from an Indie company. So it is not out of the question that they will try to sue any company that makes a new game that has those mechanics.

[u/Tlux0]

Look I like Nintendo more than most, but this patent sounds very broad.

[u/TheOnly_Anti → u/Tlux0]

Can you explain which part you think is broad?

I don't care about loyalty to Nintendo, I just don't think people should buy into ragebait headlines.

[u/Tlux0 → u/TheOnly_Anti]

I had AI summarize the patent. Seems quite broad and I’m not a fan. I want the monster taming genre to be good ffs.

Here’s some of the main relevant analysis:

“High‑level idea. The patent claims an information‑processing system (i.e., a game) that:

1) Moves a player character on a field based on the player’s movement input.

2) Lets the player cause a “sub character” to appear on the field via a first operation (think: sending out a creature/ally).

3) If an enemy is already at the spawn location, the system enters a first battle mode and handles the battle according to player inputs.

4) If no enemy is at that spot, the system automatically controls the sub character to move on the field; in this second mode, when the sub character reaches a designated enemy/location (chosen via a second operation), the system automatically switches into battle.

That sequence—spawn → check for enemy → either immediate battle or autonomous movement → automatic battle on arrival—appears to be the essence. (All of this comes straight from the patent’s abstract.)”

“It is not a blanket patent on “summoning” or “pets” in games. The heart of the disclosure (and thus the likely claim focus) is a specific state machine / input flow: player‑initiated placement/dispatch of a sub‑character on the field, a conditional branch based on whether a target enemy is already at that position, and a mode switch to automatic battle when the sub‑character reaches a designated destination in a roaming state. Generic “summons” (MMO pets, RPG summons that appear via menus and attack, etc.) existed long before and would be the sort of prior art that narrows these claims unless the claimed sequence is present.”

“Your game is more likely to intersect the claimed mechanics if it implements most of the following together:

1) Real‑time, field‑based dispatch of a companion/creature (“sub character”) to a specific location chosen by the player (aim/throw/launch).

2) A branch: if a target/enemy is already at that location, battle begins immediately in a first mode; otherwise the companion autonomously navigates the field in a second mode toward a later‑designated target/destination.

3) Upon the companion reaching that destination/target, the game auto‑switches modes and battle auto‑starts without an additional explicit “engage” confirmation.

This is close to how Pokémon Legends: Arceus handles on‑field throws to initiate capture or battle, which appears to be the design lineage the patent family is aiming to protect. (Media coverage ties the concept to field encounters and notes the potential breadth concern for games with creature summons.)”

This seems way too broad to be patented tbh. Like they don’t want other devs to be able to replicate the seamless battle flow that other monster taming games should obviously be implementing after arceus demonstrated a good way to do it? Some things just shouldn’t be patentable. A general battle system for encounters on the field is definitely one of them.

Edit: lol am I being downvoted for stating what the patent actually says or because I used AI? People should realize that using generative AI to summarize shit is like the one noncontroversial valid usage. If you want to read through a 143 or whatever page patent be my guest

[u/arhra → u/Tlux0]

This seems way too broad to be patented tbh

It seems either too broad to be valid (various MMO/ARPG pet/summon classes would probably count as prior art and invalidate it), OR too narrow to be useful (the "battle mode" part seems the most likely part that could be narrowly interpreted to make it valid, requiring an explicit switch to something like pokemon's turn-based combat system), depending on how the courts/lawyers interpret it.

Given that it was seemingly filed in response to Palworld, which has realtime combat without any explicit "battle mode", I would think they'd argue for the broader interpretation, and there should be plenty of prior art that would invalidate it.

Of course, that's all ignoring the bigger issue with this flurry of patents nintendo have filed in response to Palworld, which is that you can't patent something retroactively.

If you release a product before filing for a patent, you forgo any possible patent protection on that product (releasing a product after filing a patent but before it's been fully assessed and granted is OK, which is why you see things with marked as "patent pending", but you can't file after release).

It's all just blatant lawfare to try to crush a competing company with legal costs, and I really hope it backfires badly for Nintendo.

[u/ExcellentWonder7857 → u/arhra]

This is the issue. Battle is not defined. If battle was defined I could understand it being more novel. As it is now it is just crazy our patent office is issuing this.

[u/-Kazen- → u/arhra]

Patent pending is just useless language, it means nothing. It's just something inventors use to sound important but the language itself means nothing. Anyone can be "patent pending" technically by just filing and application.

You can also release your product before filing for a patent. You have one year from the reference being available to file for a patent. For example. If you released your invention to the public on 1/1/2024 you have until 1/1/2025 to file for a patent. It's risky to do this though because often times an invention sees public eye before the product is for sale (promo videos, advertisements, etc) and that counts against that one year. Anything greater than one year would be subject to a 102 or 103 rejection.

[u/TheOnly_Anti → u/Tlux0]

What they don't want is someone replicating Pokémon Legends: Arceus *on a switch console.

What the article and your ChatGPT summary are missing is that Nintendo specifically defines a Nintendo Switch in the patent, draw up a box diagram of the Switch sys board, and describe the implementation of the mechanics and how they run on the Switch. Even my summary is cutting out a lot of information.

You're offloading your critical thinking onto people and things when you shouldn't. I didn't and so to me, the intent of these patents is to clearly keep Pokemon competition off of Nintendo Switch consoles. The patents aren't vague, they're so specific that they can only read as one thing: "DO NOT MAKE A CREATURE-CATCHER GAME ON SWITCH."

[u/Tlux0 → u/TheOnly_Anti]

It’s not specific to a switch though. They just talk about an information processing system more generally speaking. I actually briefly looked through the patent before I fed it to the AI.

And while it is true that they do show schematics of a switch / switch 2 looking system—it’s unclear if it still doesn’t apply to any/all handhelds and it’s also unclear if that was just supplementary information to show what it meant in terms of how the battle encounters happening on the screen actually look to showcase what they were actually attempting to patent as opposed to just limiting it to that kind of console.

At the very least, the pro version of the AI I had scan it didn’t think to mention it. It’s possible it’s just dumb and you’re right, but I’m not so sure

[u/TheOnly_Anti → u/Tlux0]

No, it is specific to the Nintendo Switch. The entire document has references to the configuration of the Switch to define the controls of each mechanic they're patenting. 

[u/ExcellentWonder7857 → u/TheOnly_Anti]

Wrong. The patent expressly states the images of controller and system are non limiting in the patent.

[u/TheOnly_Anti → u/ExcellentWonder7857]

Can you name another console that fits within the description per section 4, Fig 1?

[u/ExcellentWonder7857 → u/TheOnly_Anti]

No. It is irrelevant. They expressly state the controller and console scheme is non-limiting. It is simply an example. Again this is very clearly spelled out. I understand it may be confusing. Nintendo has to provide an explanation for what might define a "controller" or a "computer". They are merely using their own console to describe that.

[u/TheOnly_Anti → u/ExcellentWonder7857]

Well yes, in the exact part that I'm highlighting they're describing a "non-limiting" left and right controller attaching to a "non-limiting" main body apparatus. But if it's not limited to just the Switch, then what else does this encompass? And why would they constantly reference the described configurations if they weren't necessary to the control scheme and functionality as described in the patent? Why not use a Switch Pro Controller for the diagrams and descriptions?

[u/cicakganteng → u/TheOnly_Anti]

Cry in Monster Hunter Rise switch, MH franchise getting sued?

[u/DrPizzaPasta → u/Tlux0]

You’re being downvoted using AI poorly.

[u/Tlux0 → u/DrPizzaPasta]

What would be a better way to use it? I had it scan through the patent pdf and asked it to summarize/analyze the contents and its effect on other monster tamer games and/or on indie devs doing it vs bigger ones

[u/studiosupport → u/Tlux0]

What would be a better way to use it?

Not using it at all would be a good start.

[u/Tlux0 → u/studiosupport]

Summarizing extremely long legal documents with AI to get the gist isn’t even remotely controversial. What an asinine take.

Not everyone has hours of their time they can afford to grasping the nuances of super long documents. If there’s any morally sound use of AI, this would likely be it. Of course, you can and should double check what you’re summarizing—I also glanced through the patent itself, but saying not to use AI for a summary is dumb, sorry.

Can you tell me why on earth you think a summary of all things is bad?

[u/DrPizzaPasta → u/Tlux0]

Someone asked you what you thought. You responded by feeding a pdf in chatGPT and copying the output into the conversation instead of giving your own opinion/reasoning. IMO, that’s poor use of AI. If someone asked you what an AI summary of the patent was, that would have been an excellent use of AI.

With that being said, these two patents are probably the stupidest bullshit patents I have ever seen.

[u/Tlux0 → u/DrPizzaPasta]

I provided the summary in quotes to show what I was basing my analysis on so we could have the same common ground for the analysis and then analyzed it below that in one paragraph lol. And yeah I agree the patent is bullshit