Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 10:00:17 -0700
From: Cyberspace Liaison (liaison@WIZARDS.COM)
Subject: Wizards News
Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Granted Patent
October 15, 1997 (Renton, Wash.) -- Wizards of the Coast Inc., developer and publisher of the world's bestselling trading card games, most notably Magic: The Gathering(R), has been granted a patent on the Trading Card Game Method of Play by the U.S. Patent Office.
http://www.wizards.com/Corporate_Info/News_Releases/WotC/Patent_Info.html
This little missive has engendered all manner of dire portents.
To my untrained eye, most of the claims are fairly specific and would only cover real Magic knock-offs (fair enough IMHO). But claim 3 seems to grant WotC a patent on the meta-game of deck building, which is a hard blow but I think it also may be a fair call. It seems to me Mr Garfield came up with a powerful idea there and, using our current legal concepts of intellectual property, is now gonna lean on all the folks that ran with that great idea.
But, hey: when we get old we can tell our grandkids, "Why, I remember back when there were HUNDREDS of collectable cardgames..."
ken
Have a look at the patent yourselves. It goes something like this:
http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?patent_number=5662332
but the important points are in the claims (which have been severely truncated in some versions that are making the rounds):