The Pokemon Company has filed suit against at least three unknown US individuals for leaking early images of Pokemon Sword and Shield monsters and gameplay info. Forbes reports that a lawsuit filed in the western district court of Washington at Seattle targets three unknown US residents who took "illicit pictures of pages from an unreleased strategy guide" for Sword and Shield and distributed those images across Discord and 4chan over the course of 15 hours in early November.
The suit goes on to argue that these images, which included images of the game's Gigantamax forms for Machamp, Eevee, Garbador, and Kingler as well several other new Pokemon and characters, constituted valuable trade secrets that disrupted The Pokemon Company's plans to market the game leading up to its launch.