Former Pokémon lawyer thanks media for highlighting projects for the company to take down

The Pokémon Company's chatty former legal boss has thanked the media for publicizing projects the company may then be forced to shut down.

Speaking to AftermathMcGowan was asked how the famously litigious Pokémon Company discovered and prioritized the many fan projects that may exist at any one time.

“Short answer: thanks to you folks,” McGowan said. “I would be sitting in my office minding my own business when someone from the company would send me a link to a news article, or I would stumble across it myself. I teach Entertainment Law at the University of Washington and say this to my students : the worst thing on earth is when your 'fan' project gets press, because now I know about you.”

But, as McGowan continued, the existence of a fan project did not automatically mean a serious-looking letter from Pokémon's legal team.

“That's not the end of the equation,” he continued. “You don't send a takedown right away. You wait to see if they get funded (for a Kickstarter or similar); if they get funded then that's when you engage. No one likes your fans.”

McGowan said his work as chief legal officer for Pokémon meant he “ran a team of 20 lawyers and non-lawyer paralegals” at the company's head office in Bellevue, Washington.

His role also entailed managing event security and the brand's customer service team (“mostly because I was the department of Things That Can Go Wrong”), meeting with global privacy regulators, and inspecting manufacturing facilities (to make “sure there was no child labor in there, etc.”).

Through his legal work with Legendary Pictures for the Detective Pikachu movie, McGowan also ended up with a producer credit.

In 2022, The Pokémon Company launched a £62m legal bid to take down an obvious and high-profile Chinese rip-off. More recently, the company was forced to comment on the sudden popularity of monster battling hit Palworld – saying it would “investigate and take appropriate measures” if needed.

Several months later, The Pokémon Company has yet to say anything further on the subject – although McGowan previously stated that he was “surprised” Palworld managed to get “this far.”