WOTC trading card games patent?

[MerricB]

About 30 seconds.

It's not bookmarked, but I've looked at it before.

Cheers!

 

[argo]

Getting the government to issue you a patent/copyright/tradmark is almost trivially easy. Basically you just have to be the first one to file the paperwork and the rest is usually ruberstamped.

Getting a court to enforce your IP can be another matter entirely, especially when you are pushing new territory in patent law. WotC holds the patent yeah, all that means is that they were the first to stand up and make a claim of ownership, AFAIK that patent has not yet been challenged nor has WotC taken anybody else to court over it.

 

[MonsterMash]

Got to admit it seems like US patent law is in a mess at this time. My big worry is Europe is going to start to allow software patents as well.

 

[sellars]

Wow, you can patent stupid stuff.

Man!! my thoughts exactly!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Merric,

I'm just curious, how long did it take you to find that patent? (And if you had it bookmarked, I'm gonna bow down and worship you as my new god. ).

Sparxmith

I'd say that people have really weird religious preferences, but that would be disallowed by board rules.

So I'll just chime in with the others and say that there are really stupid patents out there.

*wanders of and patents the process of inhaling air to draw the oxygen out of it in order to power a biologigal entity, then proceeds to sue God, demanding a royalty for every single of His products who uses or has in the past used this patented process. I wouldn't be the first to sue God...*

 

[Arnix]

You should follow paintball. One group patented the use of a "switch" in the electronic guns. People can patent just about anything. It is up to the people they sue over infringement to argue that the patent is not valid.

 

[Quasqueton]

Wow, you can patent stupid stuff.

So, what exactly do you think is stupid about the "tapping" game mechanic? Or what do you think is stupid about patenting it?

Quasqueton

 

[Dogbrain]

Getting a court to enforce your IP can be another matter entirely, especially when you are pushing new territory in patent law.

Absolutely. Perkin-Elmer/Cetus, for example, held a patent on polymerase chain reaction, but the claims they made went very far, claiming a patent on any and all "thermostable" enzymes. Judges have been throwing out aspects of their patent over the past several years. Eventually, P-E/C may end up with no patent at all, simply because their initial claims were far too broad for a court to accept if challenged.

The stupid claims in the card game patent are based on one simple fact: At the time of filing, WotC was already sufficiently rich that they knew that they could simply bury any company that dared challenge them under legal obfuscation (a lawyer is the only person whose primary purpose is to defend people from members of HIS OWN PROFESSION)..

 

[jmucchiello]

Wow, you can patent stupid stuff.

Tapping cards is not as stupid a patent as this one.

 

[glass]

As I understand it, you can patent just about anything in the US, the 'test' is mostly done when/if they are challenged.

In the UK, patents are more difficult to get, but easier to defend once you have them. I don't think a lot of the above would be granted UK patents.

IANAL though, so I might have the wrong end of the stick.


glass.