In a rare move by the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO), Nintendo has now lost their previously accepted patent for the character summoning system they filed last year.
The Patent in question was originally approved in September of last year, and after two months, the Director of the Office John A Squires ordered that the patent be re-examined. An action like this — an unprompted request for patent re-examination — hasn't been seen since 2012.
According to an article from Games Fray, this re-examination has lead USPTO to reject all 26 of Nintendo's claims, effectively revoking the patent in its entirety. While looking at the provided paperwork, they claimed 35 USC § 103, which reads as follows:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
US Patent Law, 35 USC § 103
Note that this rejection isn't permanent and can be responded to within 60 days of submission. This is what Nintendo is expected to do, and can even be taken up with Federal Courts if both parties cannot come to an agreement.
It's also important to recognize that this patent was filed around the same time as Nintendo's suit against Palworld's developer Pocketpair. It was this exact patent that Nintendo used as the basis of their patent violation claims when the lawsuit first began. Now however, if after potential litigation with the US Government falls flat, they may struggle to have a case for patent infringement. That case is ongoing, so only time will tell what will happen moving forward.
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