The Pokémon People Care About IP More Than Anything Else, Including Human Life

It will only take a few moments perusing all the headlines of posts we’ve done on the collective group that owns the Pokémon properties to know that they really, really care about intellectual property. It doesn’t matter if it’s patents, copyright, or trademark, these people will wield it all if they sniff out even the barest potential infringement they can find. But sometimes the depravity of these people’s unflinching focus on IP can surprise even I.

In January, a card shop called The Poke Court held an event at the store in Manhattan. Unfortunately, that event was interrupted by armed gunmen that stormed the storefront and robbed it. It was all over the news and the store received all kinds of support from the local community and online. Obviously a shitty situation, but good people rallied to support them.

Then Nintendo came calling.

The shop posted on its Instagram account that Nintendo reached out with “concerns” about its name and logo, which included the iconic red-and-white Poké Ball. “The short story is Nintendo reached out to us with concerns about our name and logo,” the message read. “This means we’re evolving!”

As such, the owners have released a statement with a new name and logo. The store will now be called The Trainer Court, and now has replaced the Poké Ball logo with a new one with a stylized “C” for “Court.” Beyond that, the store will continue to offer the same cards, community events, and tournaments. The Trainer Court will also be hosting an event on Pokémon Day, February 27, which commemorates the series’ 30th anniversary.

Now, I want to be very clear about this: Nintendo can do this. The store’s name and logo are likely infringing. In a vacuum, this would be your run of the mill trademark issue, with a large company forcing a smaller company to rebrand, because that’s simply what they do.

But this isn’t in a vacuum. Nintendo only caught wind of this supposed “threat” because very real people with very real guns forced a traumatic experience upon the store owners, workers, and customers. There is nothing in the Instagram message posted above to indicate that Nintendo expressed anything at all to the business other than its concerns about intellectual property. It appears that Nintendo cares more about that than any of the lives impacted by what was an armed robbery.

The business itself is putting on both a brave face and a positive attitude about all of this.

“Above all, we have always been fans of Pokémon,” the statement reads. “We are a group of kids who refuse to grow up, and we spend every day celebrating this franchise that means so much to us.”

That’s great, but it sure would be lovely if that same humanity and enthusiasm was mirrored by the very business of which they are such fans. And perhaps the ink could have dried on the police reports before Nintendo felt it necessary to pump out some legal threat letters.