Back in September, Nintendo was granted a patent that revolved around summoning a subcharacter and letting it fight in one of two battle modes, which was criticized by IP lawyers. However, following the denial of another patent focused on a Pokémon-like capturing mechanic, the summoning patent is set to be reexamined by the U.S. Patent Office after Director John A. Squires personally ordered, at his own initiative.

Following Nintendo’s US patent award covering the ability to summon another character and make them battle on the player’s behalf, the US patent office director has ordered a rare re-examination.https://t.co/9k3axif9Jy pic.twitter.com/3arLEdJBex

— VGC (@VGC_News) November 4, 2025

According to GamesFray, the reexamination came up from two older published U.S. patent applications. One was filed by Konami in 2002. The other was by Nintendo back in 20019.  Both prior art references “teaches a player being allowed to perform a battle in a manual mode and in a simpler, automatic mode.”

Squires said the reasoning for allowing Nintendo’s 2025 patent “cites the failure of the prior art of record” – meaning there was no previous related patent – “to teach that ‘a player can be allowed to perform two types of battles, that is, a battle by the first mode in which the player performs an operation input and a battle by the simpler second mode’.”

However, because “each of Yabe and Taura teaches a player being allowed to perform a battle in a manual mode and in a simpler, automatic mode”, Squires says “a reasonable examiner would consider each of Yabe and Taura to be important in deciding whether the claims are patentable”, adding that “each raises a substantial new question of patentability”.

Back when the patent was approved in September, there were many concerns that spread online that it could lead to a number of lawsuits which Nintendo sues any other company that tries to implement a summoning mechanic in its game, putting future titles in series like Persona at risk.

Trademark law says that a company could lose its trademark if it doesn’t challenge any infringements. It’s not the same thing with patents. While Nintendo was attempting to patent this mechanic – and indeed, according to the USPTO director’s order, it’s seemingly already had a similar one since 2020 – it can choose not to pursue any other company that decides to use it, and only do so when it feels its own IP is being threatened.

This is what led to Nintendo filing a lawsuit against Pocketpair with Palworld.

GamesFray notes that there may not be any further developments this calendar year relating to Nintendo’s lawsuit against Pocketpair or patents that are somewhat related to it. Decisions will be made in 2026.