Calling intellectual property lawyers?

This is another reason why I find this project so fascinating. Initially, I thought this would be a crowd sourcing of participants with backgrounds in art, science, game design, and education, but it also looks like we can get a community of programmers on board (especially when the wordpress template is released in March), as well as a community of open source/open access/IP experts.

Here's a TCG patent highlighted by honorah:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,662,332.PN.&OS=PN/5,662,332&RS=PN/5,662,332

It's an interesting read, but I must admit, I'm not totally sure what it represents in terms of this project (are they certain things we can't do, are there certain things that are o.k. despite being described in this document).

Anyway, just thought I'd throw it out there with its own thread.

Basically that patent boils down to protect a certain mechanic called "tapping". This is basically turning a card sideways to indicate its been used.

This sounds stupid, but when this came out, easily 80% of collectible card games used this and then had to go license the mechanic or try and scoot around it by calling it something else (which generally didn't work).


So avoiding that mechanic is the best plan. There's lots of other ways to indicate the card has been used.

Just cross referencing this link:

https://phylomon.forumotion.net/phylomon-f1/what-s-in-a-name-t12.htm#131

Applies to this thread as well.