Japanese games giant Nintendo is suing the developer of Palworld, Pocketpair. 

In a post on its website, the Switch firm announced it – along with The Pokémon Company – had filed a lawsuit against the company with Tokyo's District Court on September 18th. 

Nintendo is seeking an injunction against Pocketpair, demanding "compensation for damages" due to the fact that it believes Palworld infringes on a number of its patents. 

"Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights, including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years," the company wrote. 

Pocketpair has replied to the case, saying that it was "unaware" of the patents Nintendo claims it has infringed upon. 

"Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world," Pocketpair wrote.  

"Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.

"It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas."

Palworld launched at the start of 2024 and attracted over 25 million players in its first month on sale. Almost immediately, Nintendo was looking into similarities between Pokémon and Palworld.