Nintendo is pushing for a new patent that would let them go after Palworld on mobile — and Japan’s Patent Office keeps telling them no.
The company recently filed Patent Application No. 2026-019762, a touchscreen-specific patent covering monster-catching gameplay where players move via touch input, deploy capture items against field characters both in and out of battle, and receive a success-or-failure capture result. If that sounds exactly like what Palworld Mobile is going to do, that’s the whole point. The filing comes from the same patent family as two of the three patents Nintendo is already asserting against Pocketpair in the ongoing Tokyo District Court case — and it’s clearly designed to extend that fight into the mobile space.
The problem for Nintendo is that the Japanese Patent Office rejected it. Again. The JPO already rejected an amended version of the application in February 2026, and the examiner’s second rejection — communicated on April 24 — made it clear this isn’t just a paperwork issue. The filing was deemed to lack an inventive step, meaning it doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from concepts that already existed in public gaming history. Touchscreen controls, deploying capture items outside of battle, and success-or-failure capture checks were all ruled to be an obvious combination of established ideas rather than a novel invention worthy of patent protection.
What Nintendo Was Trying to Do Here
To understand why this patent matters, you need to understand the structure of the broader Palworld lawsuit.
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company originally filed their infringement suit against Pocketpair in September 2024. The case targets three Japanese patents covering creature-capture mechanics and mount-switching systems — the core gameplay loops that make Palworld feel like what it is. Since then, Nintendo has been actively working the edges of that patent family, filing divisional applications and amendments to expand its coverage while the case is still moving through the Tokyo District Court.
The 2026-019762 application is a divisional of a divisional of a divisional — three generations removed from the original filing, which carries a December 2021 priority date. By filing in the same family, Nintendo is attempting to cover more ground with the same foundational IP claim. Patent analyst Florian Mueller noted that if approved, this touchscreen patent could theoretically be used not just against Palworld Mobile but also against Tencent’s Roco Kingdom: World, a monster-catching title that surpassed 15 million day-one players in China back in March 2026 and has yet to launch internationally. That’s a significant potential target.
But the JPO isn’t buying it. The examiner’s rejection memo is reportedly well-reasoned and detailed — not the kind of boilerplate first-pass rejection that typically invites a straightforward fix. According to Mueller’s analysis, the rejection is “so well-reasoned that it will be an uphill battle for Nintendo” to turn it around.
This Isn’t the First Time Nintendo Has Hit This Wall
Here’s the important context: this exact situation has played out before with a related patent from the same family. In late 2025, another Nintendo creature-capture patent application was rejected for the same reason — lacking originality, failing to clear the inventive step bar. Nintendo responded by narrowing its claims, and eventually got a modified version approved in February 2026.
That playbook is almost certainly what they’ll attempt here too. Nintendo can amend the application again, try to persuade the examiner, or eventually appeal the rejection to a higher review body. The company hasn’t confirmed whether it plans to do any of that, but given Nintendo’s track record — which includes modifying one of its active anti-Palworld patents mid-litigation back in July 2025 — it’s hard to imagine them simply walking away.
The bigger issue is timing. Palworld Mobile is slated for a 2026 launch with no specific month confirmed, and Nintendo’s patent attorneys are clearly trying to get this approved before the mobile version drops. Every rejection eats into that window.
Nintendo’s Legal Strategy Is Getting Expensive
Here’s a number that puts the whole thing in perspective: Nintendo reported approximately $41 million in litigation losses in its fiscal year 2026 financial report covering April 2025 to March 2026. Litigation accounted for nearly 96% of the company’s total extraordinary losses for that period.
Some portion of that figure likely relates to a separate settlement Nintendo reached with Malikie Innovations over former BlackBerry patents, but the scale of the number makes clear that Nintendo’s aggressive IP strategy doesn’t come cheap — even when you’re the one doing the suing. Meanwhile, Pocketpair has been making gameplay changes to reduce its exposure, trademarked “Palworld Online” in South Korea and the US in late April, and is pushing toward a full 1.0 launch later this year. The studio is not behaving like a company that expects to lose.
On the US side, the USPTO also ordered a re-examination of a separate Nintendo patent (US Patent No. 12,403,397) — the one covering “summon character and let it fight” mechanics — after USPTO Director John Squires stepped in. That reexamination found the claims lacked sufficient innovation, with prior art cited from games like Monster Hunter 4, ARK: Survival Evolved, and even Pocketpair’s own earlier game Craftopia. Nintendo has been granted an extension until late June 2026 to respond.
Where the Main Lawsuit Actually Stands
The core Tokyo District Court case — the one filed in September 2024 over three specific patents — is still active and still pre-trial. No trial date has been set. There are no visible signs of a settlement being in the works, and as of May 2026 both sides appear to be digging in rather than looking for an exit ramp.
Pocketpair’s defense strategy is dual-track: argue they didn’t infringe the patents, and simultaneously challenge whether the patents are even valid. That second part is the potentially nuclear option — if the court agrees with Pocketpair that the patents lack validity, Nintendo risks having those patents invalidated or significantly narrowed. Given that the JPO has now rejected multiple applications from the same patent family on originality grounds, Pocketpair’s legal team has some useful ammunition when making that argument.
The patent battle around game mechanics has become one of the most watched conversations in gaming legal circles precisely because of the implications it carries beyond just these two companies. Nintendo has a long history of aggressive IP enforcement — the lawsuit against mobile developer Colopl over touchscreen game mechanic patents back in 2018 settled for roughly $31 million. They’re not shy about playing this game. But the number of rejections stacking up across patent offices in Japan and the US suggests the specific ground Nintendo is trying to claim here is genuinely contested territory, not a slam dunk.
Whether this touchscreen patent eventually gets approved in a narrowed form, gets abandoned, or ends up mattering to the main lawsuit at all — those are questions that probably won’t get answered before the end of 2026 at the earliest. In the meantime, Nintendo is spending tens of millions of dollars on litigation, Pocketpair is working toward a 1.0 launch, and Palworld Mobile is still on track regardless of what happens in the patent office.
The gaming industry is watching how all this shakes out, and it’s not just a Nintendo vs. Pocketpair story anymore. It’s a question of whether game mechanics can be owned at all — and the answer matters for every developer building anything in this space. While patent lawyers stay busy, the gaming calendar keeps moving: from Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic’s design philosophy getting detailed by Casey Hudson to smaller wins for players like Amazon Prime Gaming’s latest free game drop and the Xbox Elite Series 3 leaking ahead of June’s showcase. But the Nintendo vs. Palworld saga remains one of the most consequential legal fights the industry has seen in years, and it’s nowhere close to over.
