Nintendo has argued that mods should not count as "prior art" in its patent lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair. In February 2025, Pocketpair filed multiple "preparatory briefs," according to Games Fray, arguing that Nintendo's patent lawsuit shouldn't have been granted as there was prior art "before the relevant priority date that already covered what Nintendo claimed to have invented." Nintendo has argued, however, that mods are not prior art as they cannot run independently, unlike the games they run on. "This does not convince us from a patent law point of view," Games Fray said. The judge in the case will decide whether mods do, in fact, count as prior art, but Games Fray reports that its sister site, ip fray, noted that courts usually reject these attempts to "narrow the pool for prior art references in unreasonable ways."