I have similar questions Walter. But i have accepted and understand the fact that Gothic Chess game, it is patented so we should follow all the things the following page refers: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#patent


But it is still very annoying the fact that i can't create a Gothic Chess engine or that i can't offer from a web-page a game with Gothic's Chess rules even if it is with a different name. And if i understand the following text from the above page correctly, i'm not even allowed without the permission of Ed, to play the game(actually i am allowed, until the patent owner forbids me)!
-------------------
"The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, the right to exclude others from making, USING, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States. (U.S. patent grants are effective only within the United States, U.S. territories, and U.S. possessions. Under certain circumstances, patent term extensions or adjustments may be available.)"
--------------------


But let's suppose that Ed doesn't give the permission to Fencer (the examples are not choosen to bring any upset, but for easier understanding of what i'm saying) to play the game of Gothic Chess at Brainking.
According with the U.S patent rights, Fencer doesn't have any right to continue playing the game of Gothic Chess (since Ed doesn't want this), AND ALSO he doesn't have any right to continue playing a game that would have the same rules with Gothic Chess EVEN with a changed name.

BUT what about a game with all rules to be the same as Gothic Chess and with one more, that will say for example that the game is draw after 1200 moves. This game is obviously NOT Gothic Chess, since Gothic Chess doesn't have this rule. And the game will be called GZK. I don't see any violate of patent rights.

With the same logic, why i can't create a computer engine that will play a game of JCN? JCN will have all the rules of Gothic Chess with the following 700 rules more:
Rule 1: At move(ply) 800 white player can move one more time.
Rule 2: At move(ply) 801 black player can move one more time.
...................................
...................................
Rule 700: At move(ply) 1499 black player can move one more time.
I could easily say that someone is crazy, if he would say that my game of JCN violates Gothic's Chess patent. JCN has 700 rules more than Gothic Chess.


Anyway, although this post seems a kind of attacking on Gothic Chess (Ed Trice), my intention is absolutely not this! It just getting on my nerves the whole patent thing (not patent and Gothic Chess, but the word patent). Along with Chess and Backgammon, Gothic Chess is my favourite board game and i think it deserves to have great success, and why not to have even bigger than Chess (although it's difficult)!

I wish Fencer renew the licence with Ed for as more years as possible, and i wish also to Ed to find many other sites for playing Gothic Chess. I wish also in the future, to be available many Gothic Chess engines like GC-Junior 8 or GC-Shredder 8.0 and the market of Gothic Chess will become large and i hope hundreds of web-pages to start showing Gothic Chess things. I think that this would happen. Not very fast but it will.....