A new development has emerged concerning Nintendo’s patents that could impact the company’s recent attempts to claim ownership over game mechanics involving the summoning of another character in battle.
John Squires, the relatively new US Patent Office (USPTO) director appointed during the Trump administration, has ordered a reexamination of Nintendo’s latest patent. This patent details the mechanic of “summoning a subcharacter and letting it fight in one of two battle modes.” Squires cited earlier patents that might render Nintendo’s recent filing invalid.
The reexamination order was reported by GamesFray, which outlined the details of the review and the prior patents in question. Notably, Squires expressed concerns that existing patents could invalidate Nintendo’s claim.
One such patent is a 2002 filing under the codename “Yabe,” granted to Konami. This patent describes a character fighting alongside the player, controlled both automatically and manually. Additionally, Nintendo itself was granted a patent in 2020—referred to as the “Taura” patent—that also references sub-characters battling alongside the main character.
Squires highlighted that both the Yabe and Taura patents teach a player-enabled battle system featuring a manual mode and a simpler automatic mode. He emphasized that “a reasonable examiner would consider each of Yabe and Taura to be important in deciding whether the claims are patentable.”
Concluding, Squires stated that “each raises a substantial new question of patentability,” indicating significant hurdles for Nintendo’s recent patent claims. This reexamination could have important implications for Nintendo’s intellectual property strategy moving forward.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146667/nintendo-summon-subcharacter-patent-examination-john-squires