SEGA has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Bank Of Innovation, the developers of the mobile game Memento Mori.
The news comes via a report from Gamesindustry.biz (via the Otaku Research Institute), revealing that SEGA is seeking ¥1 billion in damages from the developer as well as injunctions for all the offending titles. The Sonic develoepr claims that Bank Of Innovation committed patent infringement with several of its titles, of which Memento Mori is among the most well-known.
The five patents were all registered in Japan, and according to Automaton Media and analyst Serkan Toto, are all related to mechanics that are common in “gacha games”. Among them is a patent that involves fusing character cards, which many players familiar with the genre know to be a very common game mechanic.
SEGA and Bank Of Innovation had apparently been in talks regarding the situation for quite some time, but were unable to come to an agreement. Bank Of Innovation alleges that no patent infringement has occurred, and that they will fight SEGA and continue running the game regardless.
This case is the second high profile patent infringement suit to come out of Japan in recent months, following Nintendo’s lawsuit against Palworld for infringing Pokemon-related patents. Such practices are apparently quite frequent in Japan due to the nature of their copyright laws.
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