Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 21:13:04 01/08/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 08, 2004 at 16:54:17, Keith Evans wrote: >On January 08, 2004 at 09:45:58, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On January 07, 2004 at 18:29:19, Keith Evans wrote: >> >>>On January 07, 2004 at 13:57:31, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On January 07, 2004 at 12:43:01, Ed Trice wrote: >>>> >>>>>On January 07, 2004 at 12:22:50, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>I think my attorney's original take on this still stands. You can patent the >>>>>>game, but you really can't prevent someone from writing a program that _plays_ >>>>>>that particular game, and then he can do with it what he wants, from selling it >>>>>>or giving it away. >>>>> >>>>>This is very, very, very incorrect. Please acknowledge that I am advising you >>>>>that all of these posts are now being logged. >>>> >>>> >>>>Please log away. You have published the rules. I will certainly write a >>>>program >>>>to _play_ that game should I choose to do so, and I would not mind taking this >>>>to any court you might choose. You can patent something and prevent me from >>>>making and selling whatever it was you patented, but you can _not_ prevent >>>>me from making one for my own use. black-letter case law applies there. >>> >>>Earlier you said "...then he can do with it what he wants, from selling it..." >>>but now you say "... making one for my own use." Those are two different >>>statements. I doubt that Ed cares about the latter. >> >>I don't know that either is a problem. IE "the game" is a far different thing >>from "a program that _plays_ the game." IE do you think Parker Brothers could >>file suit should I write a program that simply is a participant in a game of >>monopoly? I don't. Writing a program to play the game has _nothing_ to do with >>the actual game itself, in this context... > >I just wanted to point out that those two are different. Doing it privately >seems analogous to modifying something that's under the GNU license. As long as >you don't distribute the modified version, then I don't believe that the license >comes into play. (Maybe this is a weak analogy, because if you were violating a >patent related to a process, then keeping it private wouldn't really protect >you.) > >I don't really know about patent protection on an engine, but then an engine by >itself isn't going to be interesting to many people without an interface. And >that's where you would likely run into trouble. Do you think that those >companies making things like Stanford-opoly need to pay licensing fees? I am pretty certain they must, unless the patent has expired. But that isn't quite the analogy. _I_ can play "stanford-opoly" without paying any royalty, assuming someone has bought the game and has it handy. And I can write a program that plays the game and pay no royalty either. Yes, if I got into a GUI, that could be an issue as suddenly the electronic GUI would cross over to _replacing_ the game set and board. But I've not mentioned GUI, just the electronic _player_ and I am certain that can not be patented nor prevented. > In this >case I would think that Ed would want as many _engine_ writers as possible >working on it without worrying about licensing agreements, and then he could be >the one distributing an interface, licensing other interfaces, and selling >physical gothic chess sets, etcetera. Then again maybe he gets more publicity >this way - if it weren't for the patent aspect this would probably not have >gotten very many posts. > >I think that there have been lawsuits related to Scrabble, but I don't know if >it was related to patent law. There were free versions though, so there must >have been some way around it. > >-K
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