I've heard that the name "Pocket Monsters" had to be changed to "Pokémon" outside of Japan because they couldn't trademark "Pocket Monsters" due to the similarity between that phrase and "Monster in My Pocket". I was wondering if this is true or not... it makes perfect sense, except for one thing -- the monsters are commonly referred to as "ポケモン pokemon"... even in the original Red and Green Versions. If that variation was already in use then isn't it possible that they could have just chose that name for marketing reasons / because it's simpler and not because of some trademark conflict?