Nintendo’s forever lawsuit-happy legal team is going after a new IP with an admittedly conspicuous likeness to Pokemon, but it’s not the one you’re thinking of.
As if there’s any ambiguity left, it’s not Palworld that Nintendo is sending its lawyers after. While Palworld Pokemon mods are definitely being targeted, and Nintendo has said it’s investigating potential copyright infringement by developer Pocketpair, the game itself has so far eluded The Pokemon Company‘s infamous wrath.
Instead, it’s a new trading card IP titled PokeZoo that’s the subject of a January 11 opposition filing from Nintendo of America, according to a report from Game File‘s Stephen Totilo.
As you can see in the above trademark filing for PokeZoo, there was never a world where Nintendo and The Pokemon Company were going to let this fly. The bright yellow logo; the creature that’s such a shameless ripoff of the Pokemon Gengar that, by comparison, the Palworld creature Anubis suddenly looks nothing like the Pokemon Lucario; the literal Fast Ball from Pokemon at the bottom of the logo – it’s all so blatant.
Doing a little poking around on Google, I found even more egregious examples of PokeZoo’s apparent infringement. The top result includes some quick links on the company’s website, and among them is one with anchor text that straight-up reads “Pokemon”. Just below that is a shameless attempt to camp on the success of the Pokemon Trading Card Game, with a link to “Pokemon Elite Trainer Boxes.” I wonder if, by omitting the trademark accent over the ‘e’ in Pokemon, they reckoned they could get away with all this.
Further investigation reveals PokeZoo is described as a “Collectible Card Game with groundbreaking mechanics that break the 4th Wall.” A look at the company’s website reveals an incredibly sketchy looking store with 20 pages of cards and bundles, many of which are ostensibly sold out, ranging in price from $0.00 to $39,990 for an, ahem, “1 of 13 in the WORLD MetaZoo Cryptid Nation 1st Place Caster Mothman Trophy Card.” What a bargain.
There’s also a PokeZoo game on the Google Play store that was updated on the same day as the above trademark filing. “A lot of summoned beasts are waiting for you, let’s integrate into the summoned beast world, raise them to be healthy to fight with other players,” reads the description.
I would, uh, not expect that to last long, especially since we know Nintendo is already going after the IP.
Here are some games like Pokemon that are probably safe from Nintendo (for now).