Comment by toast0

> It’s strange that you can patent gameplay mechanics. After all, gameplay mechanics are what define a genre.

I had thought there was case law along the lines of games have no utility and thus can't have utility patents. Although, perhaps that case was too old, and the rules have changed.

Assuming that games are subject to utility patents, I don't see why you couldn't hold a patent on a genre defining mechanic... But genere defining mechanics for a Pokemon game probably were in the first games from 1996, and afaik the patent backlog isn't that long that they'd be getting a patent today from an application from back then.