Players walk around real-life neighborhoods to hunt down virtual cartoon characters on their smartphone screens. The Nintendo game has become an instant hit just one week after its launch.
The girl was trying to catch characters on the augmented reality game in the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane on Wednesday night when she was hit by a falling tree branch.
However, while she may have been lured to the public space in search of a Weedle, a Pidgey or a Beedrill, Pokemon Go warns users to note their surroundings.
Queensland law firm Injury & Accident Lawyers say players are responsible for their own well-being and any damage they may cause in pursuit of catching the game's fictional characters.
"If you are involved in an accident while playing Pokemon Go, it is the player who could be held liable for any injuries, not the app developers," the legal firm's director, Hideki Shimizu, said.
University of Queensland law professor Ross Grantham told AAP it would be difficult for any user to make a claim against the makers in Australia.
"The question is how much distraction does there need to be before that absolves you of responsibility or becomes an intervening cause, if you like, of the injury or the damage that has occurred," Prof Grantham said.
"You can always construct exceptional circumstances ... but the prima facie is that you are responsible for your own welfare."
He said even if the game placed virtual creatures within construction sites or behind fences, it did not give the player free passage to trespass.
Mr Shimizu says players should be careful not to injure anyone or damage property when playing the game.
"There would appear to be a strong chance that there will be claims from people injured by someone who was distracted playing Pokemon Go," he said.
Saudi Arabia denies fatwa
Saudi Arabia denied yesterday that the conservative kingdom's top clerical body had renewed a 15-year-old edict declaring that the Pokemon game was un-Islamic.
Saudi media reports said on Wednesday the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars had revived a 2001 decree against a Pokemon card game in response to queries from Muslims, although it made no mention of the new mobile game.
Users of the game walk around their real-life neighbourhoods in search of scores of "pocket monsters", which emerge superimposed on the phone screen via its camera.
The 2001 fatwa said the card game contained elements prohibited by Islamic law such as gambling. However, Saudi authorities said the social media reports were unfounded.
"The Council of Senior Religious Scholars denied that it issued a new fatwa about the Pokemon game, and the media reports of that are not accurate," said Abdulmohsen Alyas, undersecretary for international communication and media at the Ministry of Culture and Information.
On its Twitter account, the council said no fatwa had been issued for the new Pokemon game.
In conservative Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's two holiest sites, cinemas are banned and women's sports are discouraged as promoting sin.
Middle Eastern states are often wary of social media use by their growing youth populations. Authorities in Kuwait and Egypt have already warned that Pokemon players might be tempted to point their smartphones at restricted locations such as royal palaces, mosques, oil facilities or military bases.
- AAP and Reuters
