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The owners of the Pok\u00e9mon<\/a> brand hired private investigators to track down the Australian developers behind a crypto-based online game that uses its characters without the Japanese company\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n The Pok\u00e9mon Company International (TPCI) won orders in the federal court on Wednesday preventing Parramatta-based developers Kotiota from using the popular video game, film and television characters in their software, releasing Pok\u00e9mon-branded non-fungible tokens, or representing that the company has a relationship with The Pok\u00e9mon Company International.<\/p>\n TPCI was alerted that Kotiota was presenting itself as a developer of Pok\u00e9mon games in August this year, when news outlets said they had received legal letters from Kotiota claiming that articles about games should name Kotiota as a Pok\u00e9mon developer despite having no agreement with TPCI, the court heard.<\/p>\n Kotiota has represented on its website that it was working on a number of Pok\u00e9mon games, including the game\u2019s latest releases, Pok\u00e9mon Violet and Pok\u00e9mon Scarlet<\/a>, which TPCI has said Kotiota did not work on.<\/p>\n TPCI became aware in November of a website called PokeWorld that was registered by Xiaoyan Liu, who heads up Kotiota. The site announced plans to launch a crypto-based game and NFTs in January next year.<\/p>\n TPCI was particularly concerned about the launch of NFTs because according to documents filed, Nintendo and TPCI had made a \u201cdeliberate decision\u201d not to enter the world of NFTs.<\/p>\n As part of the affidavit provided to the court, TPCI\u2019s representative, Katherine Fang, had to explain the history of Pok\u00e9mon and its characters, including Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. The judgment identifies Pikachu as the \u201cmost recognisable\u201d of the characters, and includes an illustration and rules around how Pikachu should be presented.<\/p>\n \u201cMs Fang deposed that TPCI was particularly concerned to ensure that Pikachu was not represented in any way that impinged on Pikachu\u2019s visible facial features, or in any way impeded the ability to see its facial expressions,\u201d the judgment states.<\/p>\n