Sony was the strongest patent holder in Japan’s game industry in 2024. Nintendo, Pokémon Company and Sega rise up the ranks
Patent analysis service Patent Result has named Sony Interactive Entertainment the strongest patent holder in Japan’s video game and entertainment industry in the 2024 fiscal year, based on both the quality and quantity of their patents. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company made it into the top ten this year too, rising in rank compared to last year.
The full ranking is as follows:
| Company | Patent Asset Value | Number of Patents | |
| 1 | Sony Interactive Entertainment | 9,391.0 | 272 |
| 2 | Gree | 6,666.7 | 218 |
| 3 | Bandai Namco Holdings | 5,288.1 | 173 |
| 4 | Sega | 4,312.6 | 110 |
| 5 | Nintendo | 3,718.8 | 116 |
| 6 | Cygames | 3,459.7 | 95 |
| 7 | COLOPL | 2,741.6 | 125 |
| 8 | MIXI | 2,712.6 | 160 |
| 9 | The Pokémon Company | 2,258.0 | 74 |
| 10 | Konami Digital Entertainment | 2,101.4 | 85 |
As mentioned above, this analysis looks at both the number of patents possessed by each company and their quality. The “patent asset value” metric in the table takes into consideration how many valid patents each company possessed from April 2023 to the end of March 2024, as well as the relevance of said patents.
The relevance of patents is calculated based on the frequency of a given patent being cited as basis for the rejection of another company’s patent, the frequency of competitors’ attempts to restrain the patent applicant, and other similar factors. This score is multiplied by the remaining period until the patent lapses.
SIE was the patent leader of Japan’s game industry in 2023 too, and Bandai Namco and Gree also remained in the top three. However, compared to last year, Sega (which is in the midst of a patent infringement lawsuit) has risen from #7 to #4, overtaking developers like Cygames. In addition, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company – which are at the center of much recent discussion about patents due to the ongoing Palworld lawsuit, were new entrants to the top ten.
As described by Patent Result, some of Sony’s most powerful patents are related to “technology for testing backward compatibility to see if software works properly on new devices” and “a method for playing and recording music without being affected by network delays so that it sounds live.” For Nintendo, the study highlights the patent for “an information processing system that can display owned content and non-owned content in a visually distinct way.”
