Nintendo has a global patent suit for the phantom-Paru game, but the overall situation seems to be increasingly unfavourable to Nintendo, even after the Japanese concession office rejected the patent split, and the United States Patent Office has ordered a re-examination of the patent for the “Call the Pod to Dream Automatic or Hand-to-Play” in order to develop a market for the lawsuit or even the whole game.
According to foreign media sources, John A. Squires, Director-General of the United States Patent Office (USPTO), personally ordered a re-examination of patent No. 12,403,397 (hereinafter patent No. 397), which had been adopted prior to Nintendo, the core of which was “calling the role and allowing it to fight on an automatic or manual basis”.
Reviews of patents that have been adopted are not common in the United States and the last time the procedure was initiated was already in 2012. In the opinion of the Director of Patents, the reason for this is that the patent content of No. 397 is very similar to that of Konami, adopted in 2002, and that Nintendo has very similar mechanisms in patent applications filed in 2019, and that it is likely that No. 397 is not original.
According to the patent application criteria, once the relevant technology is known to the public before the date of the application, the subsequent refilling of the patent application is considered null and void, and unfortunately the date of patent No. 397 is 2021, while the core concept is similarly described in 2019 and 2002 and becomes the most important factor to be re-examined.
At the same time, the Premonition of the Fantasia Paru, which was first released in June 2021, was only introduced in December of the same year by patent No. 397 in Nintendo, which, in accordance with the principle of “a prior right of use” in patent proceedings, could hardly constitute a violation, regardless of whether the patent review was finally passed.
“Paru the Sphinx” Film
To make matters worse, if the patent office really decides that the previous use rights of 2002 and 2019 and of Paro the Fantasia will be valid, patent No. 397 will be abolished, so that this legal fight will not only add further disadvantages to Nintendo, but will also give more developers the opportunity to use similar play mechanisms freely, thus giving them the chance to take advantage of the benefits of the fishery.
