Nintendo's Pokemon Patent Rejected After Examiner Cites 2013 Fan Game
A Japanese patent examiner ruled that Nintendo's monster-catching mechanics lacked an inventive step, partly because a fan-made 3D Pokemon game from 2013 already demonstrated the same systems. Nintendo's argument that the fan project infringed its own copyrights did not save the application.
A Fan Game From 2013 Just Complicated Nintendo’s Patent Strategy
Nintendo has spent years building legal fences around the Pokemon franchise, most visibly through its high-profile lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair. But its parallel effort to lock down monster-catching mechanics through the patent system hit another wall this week. The Japan Patent Office rejected a Nintendo application covering core creature-catching gameplay, and one of the examiner’s primary exhibits was a YouTube video of an unofficial fan game posted more than a decade ago.
According to reporting from Dexerto, which cited Game Rant, the examiner pointed to a June 2013 video titled “Pokemon Generations - 3D Indie Pokemon Gameplay” as evidence that the mechanics Nintendo sought to patent were already publicly documented years before the company’s December 2021 priority date. Pokemon Generations was a fan-made 3D action RPG. The footage showed real-time movement through a three-dimensional world and familiar creature-catching gameplay, which is precisely what Nintendo’s application described.
What Nintendo Was Trying to Patent
The application in question covered a touchscreen-based system in which players navigate a 3D environment, throw capture items at creatures, call those monsters into battle, and issue commands during combat. Read that description and a few games probably come to mind immediately, which was more or less the examiner’s point.
The Japan Patent Office determined that the application lacked an “inventive step,” the standard that separates a genuinely novel invention from a combination of things that already existed. The examiner did not need to find every element of Nintendo’s system in a single prior game. Instead, as reported by Dexerto, the ruling held that a developer could have arrived at the same design by combining established touchscreen controls with well-documented monster-catching systems. Other material cited in the rejection included ARK Mobile, PUBG Mobile, Pokemon X and Y itself, additional gameplay videos, and several older Japanese patent filings.
The Copyright Defense Didn’t Stick
The most striking part of the ruling involves the argument Nintendo made in response. The company reportedly contended that the Pokemon Generations fan video should be disqualified as prior art because the project infringed on Pokemon-related copyrights. It is a creative legal position: use ownership of the franchise to invalidate the very evidence that the franchise’s mechanics were already well established.
The examiner was not persuaded. According to Dexerto’s reporting, the office found that any alleged copyright infringement had no bearing on what the publicly available footage actually demonstrated. The mechanics were visible. The video was public. The date was 2013. Those facts did not change based on whether the creators had Nintendo’s permission to make the game.
That outcome matters beyond this single filing. Nintendo has positioned aggressive intellectual property enforcement as central to its business strategy, and the argument that unauthorized fan content cannot serve as prior art would have been a useful tool in future proceedings. The examiner’s rejection of that logic closes off one potential avenue.
Context Within a Broader Pattern
This is not the first time Nintendo’s patent ambitions in this space have run into resistance. As Dexerto notes, the company has faced separate scrutiny over its Palworld-related patent claims, and a US government rejection of a related Pokemon patent was also previously reported. The fan game ruling adds another data point to what is becoming a pattern of examiners finding that the mechanics Nintendo wants to own were simply already out there, documented in public footage, playable in other games, or both.
For the fan game community, there is something quietly significant about a 2013 indie project, built without authorization and almost certainly without expectation of legal relevance, ending up cited in an official patent proceeding against one of the largest game companies in the world. The creators of Pokemon Generations probably did not anticipate their IndieDB trailer would one day serve as exhibit A in a Japan Patent Office ruling. But here we are.
What mechanics did Nintendo's rejected Pokemon patent cover?
According to reporting by Dexerto and Game Rant, the application described a touchscreen-based system in which players move through a 3D world, throw capture items at creatures, summon monsters into battle, and select commands during combat.
Why did the Japan Patent Office reject Nintendo's application?
The examiner ruled that the mechanics lacked an 'inventive step,' citing prior art including a June 2013 YouTube video of an unofficial fan game called Pokemon Generations, as well as ARK Mobile, PUBG Mobile, Pokemon X and Y, and older Japanese patent filings.
Did Nintendo argue the fan game shouldn't count as prior art?
Yes. Nintendo reportedly argued that the fan project infringed on Pokemon copyrights and therefore should not be considered valid prior art. The examiner rejected that defense, finding that alleged copyright infringement did not change what the publicly available footage demonstrated about the mechanics.
When did Nintendo file the original patent application?
The application had a priority date of December 2021, meaning the fan game video and other cited material predate it by several years.