MATTER OF TIMING

NINTENDO's latest patent wins are a loss for everyone else

- Lincoln Carpenter

Nintendo has had a lengthy history of legal skulduggery, but after initiating last year’s patent lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair, the house of Mario has descended into outright moustache-twirling IP villainy. September, however, saw Nintendo armed with a particularly troubling weapon for its legal arsenal: US Patent 12,403,397, a patent on summoning and battling characters that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted with alarmingly little resistance.

According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn’t just a moment of questionable legal theory. It’s an indictment of American patent law. “Broadly, I don’t disagree with the many online complaints about these Nintendo patents,” says Sigmon, whose opinions do not represent those of his firm and clients. “They have been an embarrassing failure of the US patent system.”

The '397 patent wasn’t Nintendo's only success with US patent officials in September. Just one week earlier, it had been granted US Patent 12,409,387, covering riding and flying systems similar to those Nintendo has been criticised for claiming in its Palworld lawsuit. Sigmon, an IP attorney with extensive experience in prosecuting and teaching patent law, says the pair of patents reflect procedural irregularities in the decision making of US patent officials. And thanks to those irregularities, Nintendo has yet more tools to bully its competitors.