The Pokémon Company accused the two Chinese studios of infringing on its copyright, and eventually settled with them for a 'substantial economic price.'
The Pokémon Company recently settled its copyright infringement lawsuit against Guangzhou Maichi Network Technology and Khorgos Fangchi Network Technology, developers of the mobile game Pocket Monster: Remake.
Automaton spotted the Nintendo subsidiary's mid-February announcement about the settlement, where it stated it would "continue to work to protect our intellectual property." According to the settlement's terms, Guangzhou and Khorgos have delisted the game, issued a public apology, and will pay a "substantial economic price" to the Pokémon Company.
"We have deeply realized that our acts had violated relevant laws during the second-instance trial and settlement process," wrote Guangzhou. "In our future operations, We will place a high priority on intellectual property protection, refrain from infringing upon any related intellectual property rights or interests of the Pokémon Video Games and their rights holders, and avoid engaging in any related acts of unfair competition."
Pocket Monster: Remake first came out in 2015, and sees players send their captured beasts (or pocketed monsters, if you will) to fight one another in turn-based company. Several monster and character designs look blatantly similar to those from the flagship Nintendo franchise, and the game reportedly made $42 million in a single year.
When the Pokémon Company first filed its suit in 2022, it called for $72.5 million in damages and public apologies from the developers.
According to Automaton, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court sided with the Pokémon Company in September 2024, and accused Khorgos and Guangzhou of violating the country's Unfair Competition Prevention Act. They were later ordered to pay 107 million yuan (or $15 million), but the developers later filed an appeal. After a second hearing in December, the parties settled.
Nintendo and the Pokémon Company are both aggressive litigiants, and sometimes, studios making Pokémon games have faced their own lawsuits.
In 2018, for example, Pokémon Go developer Niantic reached a $1.5 million settlement after a botched community event for the popular mobile game. Players who traveled to Chicago's Grant Park were besieged by game-breaking technical issues instead of the monsters they'd hoped to collect at the location.
More recently, Nintendo took legal action on Pokémon's behalf against developer Pocketpair and its debut game, Palworld. The year-old survival game was accused of infringing on several Pokémon patents. including how in-game monsters are captured. Along with 10 million yen ($65,450), Nintendo hoped to file an injunction that would block Palworld's ongoing release.
When it learned of the specific patents it'd been accused of infringing on, Pocketpair stressed it would "continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings."
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