Anyone who knows anything about The Pokémon Company International knows that they go hard. They don’t mess around with media, they don’t mess around with their IP, and they certainly don’t mess around with people who take advantage of their IP in nefarious ways. Today, it was broken by Australian outlet Vooks, that The Pokémon Company International is taking another company, Pokémon Pty Ltd to court over advertising a new NFT-based Pokémon mobile game. Pokémon Pty Ltd is an Australian company who, under the name Kotiota Studios, set up a website that claimed they would be launching a crypto game called PokéWorld.
Compounding the problem for Pokémon Pty Ltd is the fact that not only are they grifting off the biggest and most lucrative IP in the world, run by an extremely litigious leadership, but they’ve dug deeper by claiming responsibility for development on a host of Pokémon titles, from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Pokémon Home, and even the still unreleased, Pokémon Sleep. The legal documents submitted by The Pokémon Company International point out that Pokémon Pty Ltd is absolutely not a contractor of theirs.
So what is The Pokémon Company International seeking in this legal stoush? Simply, they want to prevent Pokémon Pty Ltd from using their own trademarks on the website, and social media, to not launch the game or sell any NFTs using their IP.
The material allegations made by The Pokémon Company International are as follows
- The first respondent, Pokemon Pty Ltd (PPL) is a corporation incorporated in Australia, registered on 7 December 2016. A company search of PPL revealed that the second respondent, Xiaoyan Lui, is the sole director and secretary of PPL. An Australian Business Number search confirmed that PPL holds the business name AUTELCO.
- In November 2022 the applicant became aware of a purported Pokémon website located at the domain name https://pokeworld/game/ (PokeWorld Website). A WHOIS search of the PokeWorld Website domain name states that the domain name was registered on 16 August 2022, and that the registrant of the name is Xiaoyan Liu (who is the second respondent to these proceedings). A further two WHOIS searches of https://kotiota.com.au/ and autelco.com.au identifies the registrant as PPL and Xiaoyan Liu.
- The PokeWorld Website advertises a new game “brought to you by The Pokémon Company International and Kotiota”. I understand that Kotiota Studios (Kotiota) is an entity related to the respondents in their business endeavour the subject of these proceedings. On that website, there is a section titled “2022-2023 ROADMAP” which appears to outline the timeline for the launch of PokeWorld and release of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) related to Pokémon characters. A review of that webpage indicates that the PokeWorld game will launch in January 2023.
Vooks had learned that the way with which The Pokémon Company International discovered the existence of PokeWorld was due to Kotiota reaching out to media outlets for exposure of their coming game. The hearing was due to play out on December 21, 2022, and while representatives from The Pokémon Company International were present, none from Kotiota showed up. More as is emerges.
