Given the above, let's use the four JP assets mentioned as a starting point. For reference, there appear to be four U.S. counterpart applications (i.e., applications filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office that share a common priority claim with at least one of the four JP assets above) – U.S. App. No. 17/949,666 ("US-App-1"), U.S. App. No. 17/949,831 ("US-App-2"), U.S. App. No. 18/652,874 ("US-App-3"), and U.S. App. No. 18/652,883 ("US-App-4"). US-App-1 and US-App-2 were both filed in September 2022, so it is unlikely they were filed with the specific intent of targeting Palworld (though could still obviously be asserted against Palworld if infringed). However, US-App-3 and US-App-4 were both filed in May 2024 (after the release of Palworld). Even more interesting, both US-App-3 and US-App-4 were filed with Track One requests. Track One is a program at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) where an applicant pays a fee to have the examination of their patent application substantially expedited (the USPTO attempts to provide the applicant with a final disposition, which is either an allowance or a final rejection, within at most 12 months). Based on this information, it is not overly speculative to assume Nintendo filed US-App-3 and US-App-4 with the intention of targeting Palworld.