What the USPTO's Rejection of Nintendo's Summons and Battle Patents Means for PalWorld and Other Games

In a significant – if not quite decisive – development in the ongoing Nintendo vs. PalWorld saga, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a non-final rejection of the 'Summon and Fight' patent that Nintendo was granted in September 2025. The patent, which covers a gameplay mechanic that involves summoning a secondary character into battle, had been under fire from the gaming industry almost from the time it was granted. Now, a USPTO examiner has tentatively agreed with the critics and modified its prior approval, a meaningful step in PalWorlds service.

It's not a knockout punch for several reasons: this patent isn't in the same courts as the actual legal battle, it's one of many patents involved, and Nintendo retains the right to respond, amend, and appeal. But the decision confirms the widespread concern of many legal experts and observers that the patent was granted too broadly and with too little scrutiny. The jury is still out, but the overall development could help change the tone of the overall case.

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What the patent actually covers

Knowing what this rejection really means for PalWorld and similar games, it is important to dig into it, because the formal title of the patent (patent US12403397B2) – “Storage medium, information processing system, information processing apparatus, and game processing method” – does not say much, and all that is involved in this case is a confusing mixture of legalese in two different languages. The heart of the Nintendo patent's core claim is more straightforward: it covers a specific technical implementation in a game that allows the player to summon a companion (the patent calls it a “sub-character”) who then engages an enemy, via one of two distinct modes:

Manual mode: If an enemy is already present at the summon location, the battle continues under player control.
Auto Mode: If no enemy is immediately nearby, the sub-character moves in a player-specified direction and automatically initiates combat if it encounters one.

It's intentionally ambiguous, but in plain language this could basically apply to any game where you throw out a companion and then fight something. The problem with that is that several intellectual property experts have expressed concerns that the claim's ambiguous language makes Nintendo's patent applicable to a wide range of video games. PalWorld might be the most obvious example, but also games like Fire Ring technically could fall within the same range if enough pressure was applied, legally speaking.

How Nintendo got to this point

For context, Nintendo filed this application in March 2023, and it was granted in September 2025 with a cleaner-than-average prosecution record: the claims were never dismissed or amended during the first review, a result that practitioners called unusual. Industry observers were quick to flag extensive prior art on forums and Reddit — games that had been doing this sort of thing for decades — and legal commentators were blunt in their criticism. Patent analyst Florian Mueller called the case broadly “a clear case of bullying.”

The volume of criticism was high enough that in November 2025 the USPTO Director ordered an ex parte (in the absence of a party) reexamination of the patent, and in March 2026 the examiner issued a 104-page Office Action rejecting all 26 claims in the patent. The rejection combined four previously known references – from Konami, Bandai Namco and Nintendo – to make the argument for obviousness. Obviousness in this case is a legal basis that prevents the patenting of inventions that would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of application.

What “Non-Final” Really Means

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While this rejection sounds like a landmark on its face, a non-final rejection is essentially a first draft of a decision. Nintendo has two months (at least) to respond and amend, but the practical trade-off Nintendo faces with this rejection is real. Amending claims to survive rejection likely means sacrificing the broad scope that made the patent so controversial and so meaningful in its growing battle against PalWorld developer Pocketpair in the first place.

The bigger picture: Japan and Nintendo's US portfolio

To be clear, the immediate PalWorld the lawsuit is a Japanese case, filed in the Tokyo District Court in September 2024. All this USPTO activity has no direct legal bearing on that proceeding, but a direct relationship to the case in Japan is not the point. Nintendo's problems with the UPTSO stem from a proactive move to build a parallel US patent portfolio, with several US patents fast-tracked by the end of 2024 that correspond to the Japanese patents at issue in PalWorld suit. This would set the stage for US litigation if Nintendo chooses to pursue it.

So while it doesn't affect the actual case, the USPTO's reexamination calls into question the credibility of Nintendo's entire US patent enforcement strategy. Especially since the Japan Patent Office has also separately issued a non-final rejection of a related Japanese application (No. 2024-031879) – the parent of two of the claimed “monster capture” patents – citing games that ARK: Survival Evolved and Monster Hunter as known art. JPO rejections aren't immediately binding either, but Pocketpair will likely cite both of those decisions when arguing against Nintendo's suit, and judges may notice how two separate patent works address the same underlying mechanics.

What the rejection of Nintendo's patent means for the industry

In the short term, this is a PR win for Pocketpair, a developer that has already proactively changed PalWorlds mechanics after Nintendo's Japanese target was submitted, removing the ability to ride companions to slide and replacing it with a separate tool. It provides a public, official source supporting the argument that Nintendo's game mechanics patents are overly broad and poorly vetted. In the longer term, the case may be decisive in setting a tone; a USPTO Director-ordered reexamination that ends in a rejection of all claims—on the basis of obviousness—sends a message.

The battle with Pocketpair in the Japanese courts is still unresolved. For Nintendo in particular, the pressure is now to either defend the claims as written, which is an uphill battle given the reviewer's thoroughness, or accept watered-down versions that carry less weight in application. However, the legal battle has already had real effects on game design, regardless of how the patents ultimately pan out.