The Pokémon Company, partially owned by video gaming giant Nintendo Co, is suing six Chinese companies for copyright infringement and unfair competition behaviour over a mobile game accused of bearing similarities to the Japanese franchise.
The Pokémon Company, which licences the Pokémon franchise worldwide, has applied to the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court for an order to stop the development, distribution, operation and promotion of the game, according to the filing. Zhongnan Heavy Industries, which has a market cap of 6.1 billion yuan, said in its filing that the case has yet to be heard in court, so it was “impossible to judge the impact on the current or future profits of the company”.
By 2016, a year after its release, the game had racked up more than 300 million yuan of total turnover, with monthly turnover exceeding 30 million yuan, according to Zhongnan Heavy Industries’ financial report for that year.In 2021, the company’s revenue rose 24.5 per cent year-on-year to 481.6 million yuan, while net income surged nearly 58 per cent to 207.2 million yuan.