US Patent Office Forces Rare Re-Examination of Nintendo’s “Conjuration Patent”

Nintendo has to worry about the controversial patent: The director of the US Patent Office has ordered a rare re-examination of the so-called “conjuration patent”. Two older patents, including one from Nintendo itself, could overturn the patent.

Patent re-examination after public criticism

USPTO Director John A. Squires has ordered an extraordinary reexamination of Nintendo’s controversial character summoning patent. Patent No. 12,403,397, issued in September 2024, describes summoning characters who can then fight either manually or automatically – a mechanism used in Pokémon games.

The order came after strong criticism from patent experts who called the patent too broad and unpatentable. Squires based his decision on “significant new questions about patentability” that had been raised by two older patent applications. The summoning patent was already controversial when it was granted because it seemed to monopolize basic game mechanics.

Older patents call Nintendo’s claim into question

Two previous registrations are proving to be problematic: a Konami patent from 2002 and, paradoxically, Nintendo’s own registration from 2019. Both already describe the possibility of having secondary characters fight both manually and automatically – exactly the aspect that Nintendo had claimed to be novel.

As Games Fray reported, these preliminary registrations fundamentally question the basis of Nintendo’s patent. Such directorial reexamination orders are extremely rare in the history of the USPTO. The last confirmed order of this kind was in 2012. Experts see the order as a response to public outrage over the granting of patents and concerns about the reputation of the US patent system. The USPTO has been criticized for years for patenting too many trivial or already known concepts.

Palworld litigation

The development significantly weakens Nintendo’s position in the ongoing legal dispute against Palworld developer Pocketpair. Nintendo is accusing the studio of violating three patents related to catching and summoning monsters. The patent currently under review forms a central building block in Nintendo’s argument against the successful survival game.

Last week, the Japanese patent office rejected a related Nintendo application, citing games like ARK: Survival Evolved and Monster Hunter 4 as existing works. Nintendo now has two months to respond to the order and defend the patentability of their claim. If the patent is revoked, it would significantly weaken the basis for similar lawsuits and give other developers more legal certainty when implementing summoning mechanics.