A U.S. patent examiner has issued a non-final rejection of all 26 claims in Nintendo's battle-mode patent after a Director-ordered reexamination, reopening scrutiny of a patent tied to the wider debate around companion-battle mechanics.
Sony has filed a patent for a 'Soft Pause' feature that keeps a game running while reducing gameplay intensity, offering a middle ground between fully playing and fully pausing.
A top r/pcgaming thread from 2026-02-18 cites a PC Gamer report that Valve won its lawsuit against Rothschild-linked entities, with a jury agreeing they violated an anti-patent troll protection act.