ART CREATED BY u/mortypro

In early September 2025, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued two patents to Nintendo and The Pokémon Company: U.S. Patent No. 12,403,397 B2 and U.S. Patent No. 12,409,387 B2. These patents describe fundamental gameplay mechanics such as summoning a secondary character to fight and certain riding/flying mechanics.

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The essence of gaming is experimentation, iteration, and shared creative language. Indie developers, (the studios who take risks and expand what games can be), rely on core mechanics that evolve over decades across countless titles. Granting ownership over broad, generic gameplay ideas that are not original, sets a dangerous precedent: it lets corporations weaponize vague patents to bully smaller teams, force expensive legal battles, and extinguish innovation before it even begins.

Major and indie titles that use creature-summoning, rideable companions, or non-standard traversal mechanics may be directly impacted by these patents. Major games such as World of Warcraft (player summons and combat pets), Palworld (tameable Pals used in combat and as rideable mounts), and Minecraft (taming, rideable mobs, elytra-based flight and mounting mechanics). Indie games such as Rimworld (Taming, training, and using animals for hauling/defense),  Stardew Valley (Rideable horse mount), Terraria (Tons of summon weapons/minions and mount items; summonables are literally a weapon class), among many others employ mechanics that resemble the systems described in U.S. Patent Nos. 12,403,397 B2 and 12,409,387 B2. Because these patents describe broad gameplay patterns rather than a single, narrow technical innovation, they could chill future updates, mods, and new titles that rely on similar mechanics.

Patent law exists to protect genuine inventions. But when patents cover obvious or fundamental mechanics that have long been part of game design, the system fails. Experts and industry commentators have criticized these grants and raised concerns about weak examination and undue breadth, which could chill creativity across game genres.

We call on the United States Patent and Trademark Office to:

1. Re-examine U.S. Patent Nos. 12,403,397 B2 and 12,409,387 B2 and revoke claims that are unpatentable or overly broad. 
2. Publish clear guidance limiting the patenting of basic game mechanics and ensure rigorous prior-art review for patents that claim gameplay systems. 
3. Encourage a pathway for rapid post-grant review where the public can submit prior art demonstrating that challenged claims are neither novel nor non-obvious.
4. Require the USPTO to publish clear subject-matter guidance that excludes basic game rules and generic gameplay mechanics from patentability unless tied to a concrete technical improvement; mandate examiner searches of non-patent literature (release notes, dev blogs, playable betas, code repos and app store pages); create a public, timestamped “Gameplay Prior-Art” portal for crowd-submitted evidence; and establish a low-fee, fast-track public post-grant review pathway for game-mechanic patents.

Sign if you believe the future of gaming shouldn’t be litigated into silence. Stand with indie developers, modders, creators, and players who want an open and creative industry, not one policed by overly broad software patents.