Author: Reinhard Scharnagl
Date: 08:47:13 01/01/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 01, 2004 at 11:26:42, Ed Trice wrote: >>a) following your link you will find: "Gothic Chess was invented by Ed Trice and >>is protected by United States Patent # 6,481,716". Does this mean that chess >>programmers are restricted in distributing or selling their created programs? >>Why creating a patent? >The patent was sought to allow us time to build the organization and become the >hub of Gothic Chess related distribution. Without the patent, any corporate >entity would be able to produce the boards and pieces, selling the game without >our permission, and make a great deal of profit without incurring the startup >expenses we had incurred (marketing research to see if it would be viable to try >and sell a variant, pricepoint determination to figure out what people would be >willing to pay for a set, etc.) > >Authors who create a Gothic Chess program for commercial distribution would just >need to obtain a license. The license will not be expensive at all, more of a >formality than anything else. Portions of the license will require that each >copy sold has some information about our organization and website, which I >envision to be a one page sheet that we print out and provide to authors in >whatever quantity they require. Am I right, when stating that gothic chess is differing from Capablanca's chess only by the placings of the new both piece types? Or am I wrong here? >>b) additionally what are the consequences in discussing or publishing anything >>on Gothic Chess at homesites? Why should someone start any activity concerning >>Gothic Chess, when by chance everything possibly could be illegal? >Gothic Chess is discussed on quite a few sites, this is not in the domain of the >patent. But the playing of the game (like on a game-playing site or an >play-by-email engine) is protected by the patent. There are two sites now that >have licenses for GothicChess -- one is BrainKing.com, and the other is an email >engine starting a Gothic Chess event relatively soon. What about an engine which could play capablanca's chess and your version too, or more precise, any shuffle version of this piece set? Free or protected? >>c) your challenge in Philadelphia sounds very interesting. But for programmers >>from Germany this would not be really interesting because participating would be >>too expensive, especially for private individuals. Are you really interested in >>widly spreading your idea, e.g. including Old Europe? >With all of our current technology, we can accommodate players from any country >in the world. If you program can fit on a CD, we can arrange for an operator to >run your program. We should be able to have something like web-cam access for >realtime updates if you woudl like as well. > >Or, if there are enough entrants from one particular country, you can fight it >out there, we can fight it out here, and arrange for a World Championship type >of event in someplace like London. > >We can keep this discussion open and see where it goes. Well, something like that would be a big surprise. >>d) are there already any accepted computer protocols for Gothic Chess, or will >>programmers be forced to also develop their own individual GUI each? > >There is nothing like a WinBoard interface, is this is what you are asking. But >you have a goodpoint, perhaps it is time to develope one. How many active players are known? Will it really make sense to engage? Regards, Reinhard.
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