It’s not even copyright, they’re suing for using things they patented, but their patents are extremely general. I kid you not, they have a patent for MOUNTING CREATURES, something hundreds of games have done.
Abstract: In an example of a game program, a ground boarding target object or an air boarding target objects is selected by a selection operation, and a player character is caused to board the selected boarding target object. If the player character aboard the air boarding target object moves toward the ground player character automatically changed to the state where the player character is aboard the ground boarding target object, and brought into the state where the player character can move on the ground.
IANAL - but I’ve worked for Big Company and have gone through the patent process a few times. A patent isn’t what’s written in the supporting text and abstract. It’s only the exact thing written out in the claims.
First claim from the patent the abstract is from:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a game program causing a computer of an information processing apparatus to provide execution comprising:
controlling a player character in a virtual space based on a first operation input;
in association with selecting, based on a selection operation, a boarding object that the player character can board and providing a boarding instruction, causing the player character to board the boarding object and bringing the player character into a state where the player character can move, wherein the boarding object is selected among a plurality of types of objects that the player character owns;
in association with providing a second operation input when the player character is in the air, causing the player character to board an air boarding object and bringing the player character into a state where the player character can move in the air; and
while the player character is aboard the air boarding object, moving the player character, aboard the air boarding object, in the air based on a third operation input.
Exactly everything described above must be done in that exact same way for there to be an infringement.
It’s not even copyright, they’re suing for using things they patented, but their patents are extremely general. I kid you not, they have a patent for MOUNTING CREATURES, something hundreds of games have done.
I’m no lawyer so I can’t tell you how well this would hold up in court but it’s ridiculous. See more: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/the-pokemon-company
IANAL - but I’ve worked for Big Company and have gone through the patent process a few times. A patent isn’t what’s written in the supporting text and abstract. It’s only the exact thing written out in the claims.
First claim from the patent the abstract is from:
Exactly everything described above must be done in that exact same way for there to be an infringement.
That seems a bit more easy to get around. It is still crazy to think that you have to check your whole game design against that many patents 😅
it’s stupid. I’m convinced that people who oversee software patents don’t even know what’s a computer.