While the designs were clearly inspired by Pokemon, I don’t think Nintendo has any leg to stand on in this case. The connection is flimsy at best., but I’m not a lawyer so I dunno, maybe there’s some legal loophole that Nintendo is banking on.
If this case goes in Nintendo’s favour, it could open the door for other lawsuits like Stardew Valley could get sued for infringing on Nintendo’s Harvest Moon IP, for example. I know that’s ludicrous but who knows, the law goes in unexpected directions sometimes.
I heard they sue Pocketpair on copyrighted systems, not on the design of the Pals (eg: using an object like a Pokeball to catch the creatures). They certainly have solid legal arguments, which explains why they took their time to find some flaws they could exploit to sue them.
Lol have fun tendo.
Nintendo is going to line up all 40 Palword devs and throw a turtle shell.