Nintendo of America is hiring an intellectual property lawyer to help negotiate and resolve IP disputes. Big game studios are no strangers to legal trouble, especially when it comes to defending their copyrighted material. Nintendo is particularly infamous for hunting down cases of copyright infringement, and it seems it won't reverse that trend anytime soon.
Anyone involved in the Pokemon fan-created game space or who's emulated old N64 titles is likely familiar with the House of Mario's aggressive legal stance. Over the years, Nintendo has issued DMCA notices to take down content and sued many sites and users for copyright or patent infringement. Now, to no one's surprise, it's continuing that tradition by posting a job posting for legal counsel for its Intellectual Property Group.
Palworld Studio Pocketpair Responds to Nintendo Lawsuit
Palworld developer Pocketpair issues its first response to the lawsuit that Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have filed against it.
2The info was shared by fan account Nintendeal on Twitter on October 14. A screenshot of the job listing shows Nintendo is looking for a member of the Washington State Bar Association with at least five years of experience to join the department dedicated to protecting its IPs. That includes managing the outbound copyright infringement cases the company is famous for and protecting the business from any incoming legal disputes. It also covers the far less dramatic processes of conducting in-house training and handling licensing concerns.
The news of the job opening comes right at the heels of several IP-related concerns for the Big N. A rumored multiplayer Pokemon game just leaked online, revealing a slew of private company resources, both new and old. Nintendo has also had ongoing issues with the growing emulator space. As emulators have become increasingly common, the Mario-maker has not backed down from its efforts in trying to take down the site distributing ROMs of its games.
Nintendo Has a Complicated History of Legal Action
It's unclear at this point if the new intellectual property counsel role is related to a plan to ramp up lawsuits amid growing emulation and leak concerns. However, that wouldn't be a stretch to imagine, considering the company's history of legal battles. Just recently, Nintendo sued a modding business, citing piracy laws. It's even gone so far as to take down live streams and videos of its games in the past, calling them unlawful use of their trademarked material. Not every case has worked out in Nintendo's favor, but many of them have, leaving the developer little reason to stop, outside its reputation with gamers.
The role could also be to help with larger lawsuits. In September, Nintendo filed a suit against Palworld over the perceived similarities between the title and Pokemon. Hiring a new lawyer could be a move to improve its standings in that case. Whatever the reasoning may be, the position is still open for now, so how Nintendo uses its expanded legal team has yet to be seen.