According to the South China Morning Post, Japan’s Nintendo’s Pokemon Company Co., Ltd. (Pokemon Company Co., Ltd.) has filed a lawsuit once morest six Chinese game publishers for copying the “Pokemon” IP on the grounds of copyright infringement, and the amount of compensation is 5 billion RMB.
According to recordsthe defendant and other 6 Chinese game publishers, since 2015, they have launched video games similar to “Pokémon” without authorization. Almost completely copying the characters in the “Pokémon” works, the game’s revenue reached 300 million yuan a year following its launch, and the game was also launched on the mobile game platform in different versions.
The Pokémon Company emphasized that these works not only misappropriated the same characters of the original IP, but even the game’s battle evolution system is quite similar, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish. The Pokémon Company has recently filed a lawsuit with the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, requesting that the defendant company issue a public apology statement on China’s Sina, Weibo, NetEase and other social platforms along with the game listing platform.
According to reports, the case has not yet been closed, and the rampant pirated games in China has already attracted widespread attention around the world. The follow-up development of this case has become a battle for rights protection between Nintendo and the Pokémon Company in China.
