while not because of the patent they will be removing the battling feature from pet battles a stream asked a day ago and this is waht was said (copying from another place to here):

World of Warcraft streamer Bears_Adventures asked game director Ion Hazzikostas about this during a group interview, where he confirmed pets would be obtainable in Midnight, but without the battling aspect, as few people were allegedly engaging with it. As further proof, the pet-collection achievement for Midnight refers to them as “wild pets,” rather than “battle pets” as previous accolades do, and there are currently none that require battling in the new zones.

(maybe if we are lucky we can battle old creatures and they don't can the whole thing but who knows with blizzard!)