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Palworld's best defense against part of Nintendo's lawsuit could be an 8-year-old GTA 5 mod, according to one patent expert

An 8-year-old GTA 5 Pokemon mod might help Palworld defend against Nintendo's patent infringement lawsuit, potentially invalidating a key patent related to creature capture mechanics. The lawsuit, involving three patents, continues despite Palworld's PS5 chart success in Japan.

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Palworld could find an unlikely ally in an 8-year-old GTA 5 mod while trying to combat Nintendo's lawsuit.

That comes from the Nikkei Business Online Edition (as translated by Automaton), which cites an expert from Japan-based Patent Attorney Corporation Siarasia, who says the mod may offer a decent defense against one of the three patents Nintendo has pulled Palworld developer Pocketpair up on.

Earlier this month, Pocketpair publicly disclosed how much money Nintendo was seeking and which patents it alleges explicitly have been infringed – and it was the very patents some legal experts thought it would be. Nintendo and the Pokemon Company reportedly filed three new divisional patents – smaller offshoots of larger and pre-existing patents – following Palworld's Early Access release to strengthen their legal claim.

One of those patents relates to throwing a ball to catch creatures, and that's where GTA 5 comes in. The representative patent attorney cited points to a fan-made GTA 5 mod that brings Pokemon to Los Santos. The mod was released in 2016 and features the tried-and-true mechanic of throwing a Poke Ball-like object at a character in an attempt to capture them. The mod itself isn't named, though Automaton says it's likely to be this Pokemon GO-inspired one right here.

So why is that relevant? The GTA 5 mod in question features a Pokemon-like capturing sequence similar to the one described in one of the divisional patents mentioned early and predates both that patent and the parent patent registered in December 2021. As such, "there is a possibility that the GTA 5 Pokémon mod will be recognized as a precedent by the court." If that happens, one of the patents Nintendo is leaning on for the lawsuit will be knocked over.

Legal experts still predict this one will rumble for a while, and there are other patent infringement claims to defend against, though it looks like there are a few twists and turns to come yet.

On the bright side, the Nintendo Palworld lawsuit didn't stop the survival hit from debuting at the top of Japan's PS5 charts over Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Metaphor: ReFantazio.