Author: Matthew White
Date: 17:37:31 01/09/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 08, 2004 at 22:40:58, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On January 08, 2004 at 21:51:06, Amir Ban wrote: > >>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. > >That is not the case here however. I am not reproducing "all the steps". I >am just producing the "final result" which is playing the game. In fact, all >the patent seems to protect, in this case, is the formal definition of the >game, and that seems pretty much shot down since it is a change to prior art >that existed a hundred years ago. However there are plenty of patented games, >but that doesn't prevent me from writing a computer program to _play_ the >game, ie crafty in "text mode"... > >That's the point of contention here. <<SNIP>> Maybe someone should patent a variation of Gothic Chess where resignation is included (or the digital representation of Gothic Chess). I read through the whole patent and found no evidence of the ability by either opponent to resign. I also find no evidence of playing this game with a clock included. Somehow, I have a feeling that this patent won't be enforceable. There are fundamental pieces that are missing. Sure, there's the catch-all included "While the principles of the invention have been described above in connection with the specific associated method, it is to be clearly understood that this description is made only by way of example and not as a limitation on the scope of the invention." By that logic, Capablanca's original would be covered by the patent. That simply makes no sense...
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