NEWS

Colopl Settles Patent Infringement Lawsuit with Nintendo by Paying $30 Million

Release time:

2021-09-09 11:33

Colopl Settles Patent Infringement Lawsuit with Nintendo

by Paying $30 Million

 

This August, Nintendo and a game developer Colopl announced that they have settled for patent infringement regarding White Cat Project (Shironeko Project in Japanese), a smartphone game developed by Colopl. Although both companies did not publicly share exact details of the settlement, at least it is sure that Colopl agreed to pay 3.3 billion yen (about US$30.2 million) as the settlement fee for the proceedings, including the future license of Nintendo's patents. 

 

How did the battle begin? 

Being developed and published by a Japanese game developer, Colopl, White Cat Project is a free-to-play action role-playing game for Android and iOS systems. The mobile game was launched in July 2014 as well as got a television anime adaptation in 2020. It is incredibly popular to have more than 50 million downloads. Furthermore, the game is set to receive a Switch version titled "Shiron's New Project". 

 

In September 2016, Nintendo noted the Colopl's game and considered that the game had infringed on several of Nintendo's technology patents. The two companies communicated with each other for over a year; however, Nintendo did not accept the explanations from Colopl, and Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Colopl at the beginning of 2018. 

 

Nintendo claimed that Colopl infringed 6 of its patents. These patents protect touch-screen joystick functionality (patent no. JP3734820), multiplayer connectivity (patent no. JP5595991, JP6271692), confirmation screens in sleep mode (patent no. JP4010533), character attacks based on touch input locations (patent no. JP4262217), and a shadow effect placed on characters hidden behind the game geometry (patent no. JP3637031).

 

These patents almost cover various ways of game technology, especially the patent 

JP5595991 and JP6271692. Their patent family is wide-reaching, and many divisional applications of the family are pending in Japan. They protect a communication game system and its related devices. It is not easy to detect the patent's existence and boundary since this kind of hardcore technique is so common in the gaming field and our daily lives.  

 

The five-year patent war has been settled. 

After a five-year dispute, the situation appeared to turn in Nintendo's favor as the Switch maker increased its monetary demands, which convinced Colopl to strike a deal that lets it use the disputed patents. Furthermore, a Switch version of White Cat Project remains in the works at Colopl. 

 

With the extraordinary losses of Colopl, the legal battle between the two companies came to an end.

 

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