WOTC trading card games patent?

[Dogbrain]

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.

The self-destructing polymerase chain reaction patent was granted in Europe as well as the USA. It, like very many early biotechnology patents, relied upon massive ignorance on the part of patent examiners.

 

[woodelf]

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

Quasqueton

It fails to pass the "non-obvious application of existing technology" test for a new patent? Heck, Tarot readers have been indicating various things about the interpretation of a card via its orientation for centuries, at least. Applying that mechanism to a card game, assuming it really hadn't been done before, is still pretty obvious. (In particular, we were playing around with a card game that would've used precisely position and orientation as a major component of the game mechanics a year or more before M:tG hit the market. Never ironed out the rest of the game, so it never happened, and it would've, at best, hit market well after M:tG, but it had nothing to do with M:tG, so we couldn't very well have gotten the mechanism from there, ergo it's a pretty obvious idea and shouldn't really be eligible for patent protection.)

 

[Janx]

Bear in mind, it's not quite that easy to get a patent. I filed for one back in 2003, and I won't expect it to be approved until 2005 or so.

So even though woodelf may have been working on it before WotC released, MTG, it's hard to say when WotC actually filed for theirs. In the end, it's a matter of timing, and challenging it.

To defend WotC;s patent (not a popular task), it's kinda tricky to consider Tarot as prior art. While woodelf is right that it's definitely a mechanic in reading the cards, it's up to the patent reviewers to make that connection. Basically, is MTG the first to introduce that concept in a game?

It's in WotC's interest to patent it, because they can restrict or slow down the competition from making other CCGs. To be honest, it's not a factor of the game being a CCG, so much as being a card game. We could also use beads on the cards (like we do in MageKnight, which I often refer to as "Tapping").

Patents usually frustrate those who thought of the same thing, or see it as pretty obvious and now are hindered by virtue of they can't use the same solution in their own project, due to patent infringement. The problem is, many things seem obvious AFTER they're seen. But given that there had not been a game with "tapping" before MTG says it wasn't too obvious before then.

Janx

 

[Saeviomagy]

For most of the world, getting a patent consists of:
1. Submitting the application and a fee for processing
2. Waiting while it is examined and determined to be patent-worthy
3. Knowing that what you had was certainly patent-worthy and defendable, and using the patent office's approval as powerful evidence in any challenges.

For american patents, it often seems to be that the system consists of
1. Submitting the application and the fee
2. Waiting until the patent office gets around to rubber-stamping it
3. Having a piece of paper who's sole purpose is to hopefully mean people won't bother to infringe, and if they do infringe throwing lots more money at lawyers to hammer them until they shut up or pay you.

 

[Ranger REG]

I really don't know what's the fuss is all about. Patents are short-term control, compared to trademarks and copyrights.

 

[MerricB]

It fails to pass the "non-obvious application of existing technology" test for a new patent? Heck, Tarot readers have been indicating various things about the interpretation of a card via its orientation for centuries, at least.

Not like Magic, though.

"Tapping" involves changing the orientation of a card to indicate that it has been used, and then restoring it when it become available again. Tarot cards don't change in orientation. Once they're placed, that's how they stay.

It is obvious in hindsight, but it is incredible how many card games over the years have never used that technique.

What is also important is how "the time is right" for an invention. A good example might be that of calculus - it was invented at the same time by two different people. (Newton and Leibniz). {Although there is some debate about the matter, I find}

The fact that you independently came up with elements of Magic just shows that "the time was right" for that portion of the game to be invented.

However, you didn't have the will to perservere and get your game into a useful form. Wizards (and Richard Garfield) did. And thus they get the spoils.

Cheers!

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

(a lawyer is the only person whose primary purpose is to defend people from members of HIS OWN PROFESSION)..

As an aside, isn't that technically the primary job duty of soldiers, as well?

 

[woodelf]

Not like Magic, though.

"Tapping" involves changing the orientation of a card to indicate that it has been used, and then restoring it when it become available again. Tarot cards don't change in orientation. Once they're placed, that's how they stay.

It is obvious in hindsight, but it is incredible how many card games over the years have never used that technique.

And how many would have merited it? The fact that M:tG has mechanisms that require indicating whether an "in-play" card is "in effect" is certainly novel, as is the random distribution, and having the rules encapsulated on the cards themselves. But that doesn't make the specific "technique" of rotating the card 90deg a meaningful innovation, if it is an innovation at all. Would you consider it sufficiently innovative for patent protection if, instead, the player had two rows of cards in front of her, and moved cards from the near row to the far row when tapping them? I contend that "tapping" wasn't used in previous games not because it wasn't thought of or couldn't have been thought of, but because the card games in question had no mechanical elements that could take advantage of such a feature.

What is also important is how "the time is right" for an invention. A good example might be that of calculus - it was invented at the same time by two different people. (Newton and Leibniz). {Although there is some debate about the matter, I find}

The fact that you independently came up with elements of Magic just shows that "the time was right" for that portion of the game to be invented.

Or it shows that the idea is semi-obvious. For all we know, it was first thought of 50yrs ago, but it never occurred to the "inventor" that it was sufficiently novel to merit recognition, much less patenting. The fact that it's never been patented before could indicate it's never been thought of--but it could also indicate it lacks merit.

However, you didn't have the will to perservere and get your game into a useful form. Wizards (and Richard Garfield) did. And thus they get the spoils.

Actually, there were a number of problems that stopped the game--i'm not sure lack of perseverence is really a fair assessment. It was never resolved satisfactorily how basic gameplay would go, such as whether it would involve playing cards, or manipulating already-laid-out cards, or what--it might have even not involved cards. Other projects were deemed more important. And then the game company dissolved, and some friendships along with it, leaving any question of "ownership" of the work thus far up in the air. But that's not important. Anyway, you're right about independent invention in a narrow timeframe sometimes meaning something. Nonetheless, in this case, i stand by my claim that the tapping element is not sufficiently innovative to merit patent protection. Even if nobody had ever thought of it, and it was genuinely a new idea, i still don't consider it sufficiently novel to matter. Some things are just too insignificant, or insufficiently clear-cut, to be worthy of a patent. To make an analogy, let's say that everybody tied their shoes with the make-two-bows-and-knot-them technique because that was all that was known, and someone figured out the rabbit-goes-around-the-tree-and-into-the-hole technique. I don't think it deserves a patent, because it's just not original enough. That's about where i'm at on tapping: just because it is legitimately novel doesn't make it significant. Turning a card to indicate its effect on play is too insignificant of an innovation to merit patenting, IMHO. Period.

Hmm...let me try a better analogy. Should Sandy Petersen and Greg Stafford have a patent on the concept of rolling a number of dice equal to your attribute, and adding them up to get the result? Even assuming there were never any RPGs, or even games, that did that before, is it *really* sufficiently original to merit patent protection? Patent the entire Ghostbusters game engine, as a whole? Maybe. But one little piece, in isolation? It just seems ridiculous. Especially when it's not a technique or method, but rather just a surface expression. "Tapping" a card in M:tG doesn't actually *do* anything--it's merely a method of indicating that something is being done (which is actually governed by the rules of the game, as printed on the cards). You could achieve exactly the same effect by shuffling cards from one side to the other (tapped cards on the left, untapped on the right), or having two rows, or putting poker chips on them, or any of a hundred other possibilities. Just as "one-click shopping" isn't actually a technique or method, it's just the interface for the customer. There are at least 3 different underlying techniques (algorithms) that could be employed, and at least as many different methods as there are programming languages. It's patenting the big red off button on the drill press, rather than the cleverly-designed control panel that leaves the off button raised and exposed and the on button recessed and protected.