Author: Amir Ban
Date: 18:51:06 01/08/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 08, 2004 at 13:58:01, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On January 08, 2004 at 12:37:18, Ed Trice wrote: > >>Hello Dr. Hyatt, >> >>> >>>Your _game_ is somewhat different than normal chess, although I don't believe >>>it meets the criteria for "no prior-existing art" in patent law. I am talking >>>about _playing_ your game, not building a chess board and pieces for your game >>>and selling that. Patent law does not go there. >> >>A ha! >> >>You think I am trying to control who plays the game? >> >>No no no, not at all! >> >>You can play it all you want! >> >>1. You can't sell it. >>2. You can't give it away. >> >>Sure you can make your own pieces and set them down on an 80 square board, that >>is not what is being claimed as something prohibitive. >> >>Playing the game is not an infringement. >> >>Making a program is. > >There I am absolutely, 100% sure, you are wrong. You can _not_ patent something >from that perspective. It was already done for the music transposition >algorithm. It was kicked out by the courts. > >you can patent a "thing". You can not patent a "subject". IE you can not >patent an "airplane". You can patent a _specific_ design, with two wings, >engine in the front, rudder/elevator in the rear. Along comes someone with >two wings but elevator in the front and they patent that. > You can patent procedures. There are thousands of patents that do that. I have several of those to my name. E.g., recently Microsoft announced it will start licensing the FAT file system. This was a surprise because that dates from 1975, was never patented, and if it were it would expire by now. It turns out that Microsoft are trying to get royalties out of the long filename variation of FAT. Specifically their patent claims to invent a file system organization holds both a long filename and a short version, as is done in Windows and MS-DOS 6. Ten years ago Stac nailed Microsoft for $40 million on their patent for Lempel-Ziv 77. Sperry have the patent for Lempel-Ziv-Welch, and routinely license it. You can't get around a patent by making an arbitrary variation. If you do ALL the steps in ANY of the claims, you are in infringement. Amir >Just try to patent "a machine that flies" to see what I mean. That's why you >have to supply all the ancillary stuff, such as drawings, specifications, >details about operation, etc. > >I could never (probably) build a chess set for your game and sell it. But I >can certainly write a program that plays the game, because you have made the >rules _public_. And my program that plays the game is mine to sell or give >away. Just as surely as I can write a program that _designs_ airplanes, and >sell it, even though the aircraft designs are already patented. > >Someone is giving you _bad_ advice when they tell you that you can prevent >someone from writing a program to play a game you have patented. > >> >>Now I know what you are going to say: "How is writing a program to play the game >>different from any other representation?" >> >>We sell a Gothic Chess program. We sell boards and pieces. > >you can sell a chess program. You can copyright one. But you can't prevent >me from writing one myself. If you believe so, you are in for a lot of grief >later when you spend a fortune and lose when you challenge someone. My chess >program is copyrighted, because I wrote it. You can't take it and use it as >you want without my permission. But you _can_ write one of your own. BTW you >can _not_ patent a computer program. The only exception that has been granted >was when the program was a hard-wired design where the chip itself (containing >the "program) was therefore patentable. > >> >>I think that covers it, in essence.
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