Comment by bbanyc
2 days ago
You very much can with board and card games. Monopoly was patented and so was Magic: the Gathering.
My question is whether this patent only covers specific game mechanics introduced in the most recent Pokemon game or whether it's broad enough to monopolize the entire genre. Because if a clone of the original Pokemon from 30 years ago (has it really been that long? I feel old) is infringing, then the patent is clearly invalid due to Nintendo's own prior art.
IANAL, but I think you're misunderstanding their point. MtG did not patent the genre/game type. There are countless other cards games that are essentially MtG, just not called that. Same with monopoly and any other established board game.
It's mostly trademarks with physical games, not patents.
But video games are ultimately software, and that's easy to patent...
US Patent #5,662,332 - Trading card game method of play, inventor Richard Garfield, assigned to Wizards of the Coast https://patents.google.com/patent/US5662332A/en
Obviously there have been lots of other TCGs, but up until that patent expired in 2014, they had to either be sufficiently different from MtG to avoid the patent, or pay royalties to WOTC.
There were also cases that just invalidated it in place. It was a dead patent. You still can't call turning cards to indicate use "tapping" though.
edit: to be clear, anyone can copy every single element of any board game, as long as they don't infringe on the game's copyrights or trademarks i.e. the art and the text, including the names of things. This is absolutely true in the US, but not necessarily true in other countries, and I'm pretty sure false in Germany. Also, there is a European alliance of board game designers who will blacklist retailers that sell your copied game, and the sites that promote it.
Monopoly harassed the game "Anti-Monopoly" forever over this, but eventually when the law became clear, realized they would lose, so settled by paying the designer and giving him a perpetual license to any IP involved in the mechanics of Monopoly so there wouldn't actually be a court decision recorded that officially invalidated their patents (I'm not sure if it was still Parker Brothers by the conclusion.) They could theoretically go after people still, and probably have sent letters (everybody who was going to get rich off the next big board game in the 60s and 70s made a Monopoly clone.) But after the Anti-Monopoly guy published about the experience, everybody knows that any threats are toothless.
There are three types of patents in the United States design utility and plant. This is probably the cause of the confusion.