I disagree. I think it's too much when you consider all the strings attached to it.

Someday I'll understand the patent business or this will be resolved in a way that I understand. I still do not see how a game that is over one hundred years old can be patented. Changing the starting places of three pieces and leaving all the rules the same is certainly no new game as far as I can see. It be like switching the Knights and Bishops in regular Chess and patenting that version of Chess.

If you're right redsales about just changing the rules or renaming the game, Fencer could just start all games as Bird's Chess and then have forced moves similar to how some Checker tournaments are done until the set looks like Gothic Chess and then allow the players to move as they wish. I believe I posted something like this idea a few months back. Depending on where the Chancellor/Marshall and Archbishop/Cardinal are initially set up in Bird's Chess you could arrive at the Gothic Chess set up in five to seven moves if I remember right. IF the players wanted to play the original Bird's Chess they could just start the game without the inforced moves.