You might be right about Monopoly and Clue, but you are quite wrong about Battleship. Monopoly is based on copywritten stuff and propietary rules. I'm not sure about Clue. As for Battleship, anyone can sell it. They may or may not be able to call it Battleship, but they can certainly sell it. Just as this site has Battleboats. A la Othello / Reversi. Gothic Chess is in the same class as Reversi. There's no copyright on the rules or play, just the name of the game. I certainly could too make and sell sets of it without your permission. Maybe not call it Gothic Chess, (A name I don't like for this game, but have grown accustomed too), how would you stop me from doing so? Your patent is bull, and we all know it. The patent office might have taken your money and issued you a patent, but it'll never stand up in court. The game is over 100 years old. Changing the initial starting position doesn't make it a new game. It makes it a modification of prior art. None of the pieces are designed by you. In fact, they all predate your birth by many decades or centuries! Same thing for the board and playing rules. You even say the rules are the same as for regular Chess! You site Bird's version of 1875 in an article written by you about Gothic Chess at http://www.chessville.com/GothicChess/GothicChessIntro.htm
I, or any game manufacturer could start making Bird's Chess sets and sell them. You just try and get licensing fees for it. Who are you trying to fool? I could enclose with the rules a mention of different starting positions and variants. It'd be cool to make the board be adjustable in size so one could play different games on it, plus throw in extra pieces too.
Since you say you're an expert Checkers player, I assume that you're familiar with playing Checkers where the game is not started from the initial position, but instead the players are given certain moves to make first and then are free to make whatever moves they want? Is that game still Checkers, or should I patent it and demand royalties and licensing fees as you have done for Bird's Chess? This is how it appears to me as to what you have done. Amazingly to me, you have gotten a lot of people to go along with you.

As for you not arguing on this board about it, or telling me where to send my messages, too bad. I like this forum very much and with you not in the moderator's chair others can have a say in it, especially those that disagree with you and your position. And that's whether or not they're knowledgable about patent law or have access to attorneys either.

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