Okay, SO....
Watched Moon Channel's take on this whole situation.
Here's the hour long video if you want to watch it.
Moony talks a bit about both US and Japanese laws for context, as well as delves a bit into some old videogame media history and some metaphors for how big business functions on the legal side for further context.
Tldw; his conclusion is that it's not about the exact patents involved in the lawsuit. It's about Pocketpair partnering with Sony to expand the Palworld franchise in an attempt to capitalize on aspects of Pokemon's market (likely in part because Sony is kinda flailing in the videogame market right now. Seriously, being a Playstation fan has been a hot mess lately). And since copyright infringement is out the window as a viable avenue to respond to that, Nintendo is needing to resort to patent infringement claims instead. i.e. Moony's interpretation is that Sony is the 'aggressor' here, and Nintendo is using whatever means it can to defend its golden goose trademarks without exposing them directly.
And honestly, I can
kinda see that. Can't say that alarm bells weren't ringing in my head when I first read that Pocketpair was partnering with Sony, because that
definitely feels like a direct challenge to the Pokemon franchise. And no matter how this lawsuit ends (this could take literally years to resolve), it's going to be messy and likely have huge long term ramifications. Still don't know exactly where I stand in this situation other than 'man, this is gonna
suck...'
Random aside: I think I've read almost every article about the Nintendo v Palworld situation that Moony sources in his video. Dang. Didn't think I was being that thorough.
Edit: someone in the comments is comparing patent law to a game of modern Yu-Gi-Oh, lmao. All about figuring out how to prevent your opponent from playing the game and how to counter those attempts.