The Pokémon Company has been awarded around 15 million US dollars in a copyright lawsuit against a Chinese company that apparently blatantly used Pokémon characters in its game.
As reported by GamesBiz and translated by Automaton, The Pokémon Company announced its success in the legal battle over Pocket Monster Reissue, also known as Koudaiyaoguai Fuke, a turn-based role-playing game for mobile devices that reportedly includes characters such as Ash Ketchum and Pikachu.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court acknowledged copyright infringement and ordered one of the six accused companies to pay 107 million Chinese yuan (about 15.08 million U.S. dollars) in damages. Three of the remaining six companies were sentenced to joint liability but have appealed.
Pocket Monster Reissue was released in 2015 and enjoyed great popularity, grossing over $42 million in a single year according to The Pokémon Company, as reported by the South China Morning Post in 2022.
The game featured seemingly unaltered Pikachu graphics from the Pokémon Yellow box as the app icon, while other trademarks of the game appeared to feature Ash Ketchum, Pikachu, Tepig, and Oshawott, also unaltered. Pocket Monster Reissue gameplay by perezzdb on YouTube shows countless other familiar characters and Pokémon in what appears to be intended as a remake of the original games.
The Pokémon Company is pretty ruthless with its copyright lawsuits, but with some targets, possibly including Pocket Monster Reissue, the influence is more obvious than others.
A former general counsel for the Pokémon Company said in March that the company does not actively seek out fan projects to shut down, but only does so when they cross a certain line.
There are numerous examples of Pokémon fan projects being hit with cease and desist letters despite everything. In 2018, a popular fan-made tool that players used to create their own Pokémon games was shut down. In 2021, support for a Pokémon fan project called Pokémon Uranium was ended after nine years of development. And in 2022, The Pokémon Company removed almost all videos of a fan-made Pokémon hunting FPS that went viral on YouTube and social media.
Although not a fan project, the “Pokémon with Guns” game Palworld has been compared to the Nintendo classic by many due to its popularity. However, the Pokémon Company only issued a fairly inoffensive and general statement in response: “We intend to investigate all actions and take appropriate action to address any actions that infringe intellectual property rights related to Pokémon.” Lawyers told IGN that a lawsuit is unlikely.
Ryan Dinsdale is a freelance reporter at IGN. He talks about The Witcher all day long.
