Sounds like some folks at the USPTO are looking forward to well-paid jobs at Nintendo.

It’s strange that you can patent gameplay mechanics. After all, gameplay mechanics are what define a genre.

It’s like in literature if someone could patent the idea of a detective investigating a murder.

How could the "pokemon-like" genre even exist if you couldn’t create a game that uses “summoning and battling characters”?

Even worse, that description alone applies to multiple genres... JRPGs, or even fighting games with multiple characters (something like Marvel vs. Capcom) could fit that description.

I can understand intellectual property rights for very specific technical implementations (for example, the raycasting technique used in Wolfenstein 3D) but you shouldn’t be able to patent the concept of the first person shooter itself. That feels more like restricting freedom of expression.

There are a lot of people spreading FUD about these patents, but if you read the actual patent, it’s not like Nintendo now has a patent on all summoning of creatures in video games. The patent is for “you control a character, you throw Pokéball, Pokémon comes out and you control it, and if it comes near another Pokémon it starts a battle”. This is clearly aimed directly at Palworld.

Are most software patents stupid and overly broad? Yes. Should this one have been granted? No. Is this going to stifle the industry? Highly unlikely.

I'm sorry but the default USPTO position should be to deny process/algorithm/software patents without true innovation. In this case, their own game/show was first released in 1996 in which the patent itself would be invalid from that position, even if they had completely invented the mechanics/idea with no other prior art, their own art is well longer than the term a Patent can/should protect.