Re: [spoon-discuss] Proto-prop: Patents

[Glotmorf <nomicmorf@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Baron von Skippy <bvs@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >If we have patents that reference patents, that
> *is* an 
> >overarching class structure.  Or are you now
> talking about a 
> >class structure as an element of the rules, and
> patents as 
> >possessable objects?  In which case, there'd still
> be a patent 
> >for every silly little concept, otherwise the
> original 
> >patentholder would get more power from an
> ever-growing class.
> >
> >I, for example, might want to independently develop
> the 88mm 
> >recoilless gnomitzer.  You can keep the patent on
> gnomes.  My 
> >patent on the steel jacketed ammo would just
> reference gnomes 
> >as an ingredient. (Forget the funny hat.  Ever see
> a gnome in 
> >a steel jacket?)
> >
> -That's very strange... basically, I'm trying to
> avoid this having been a possibility:
> 
> vSOI patents:
> Gnomes
> Fire Gnomes
> Water Gnomes
> Earth Gnomes
> Air Gnomes
> Grain Gnomes
> Beer Gnomes
> Summer Gnomes
> Winter Gnomes
> Yoyo Gnomes
> Grape Gnomes
> Wine Gnomes
> Champagne Gnomes
> ...
> Ford Prefect Gnomes
> PGGB Gnomes
> Airspeeders
> 
> There were 34 kinds of Gnomes. Tell me that there
> wouldn't have had to be a list of 3 dozen patents
> with text somewhere when one rule worked just fine,
> and I'll go with your system. What I'm advocating,
> though, looks more like this:
> 
> vSOI patents:
> Gnomes
> Airspeeders
> 
> WBE patents:
> 88mm recoilless Gnomitizer

Gnomitzer, not gnomitizer.  As in howitzer, but it
shoots gnomes instead of hows.

> Vertical Boosters
> Cargo Bays
> ...
> 
> Now, WBE speeder upgrades, by and large, would not
> be easily compressed into one little subsection,
> unless that was "speeder upgrades," which is too
> monopolistic. But Gnomes are Gnomes.

That's just it...gnomes aren't gnomes.  If you're
trying to bring back all the gnomes there were on the
old grid, that's, as you say, 34 different kinds of
gnomes.  You want a patent on the basic gnome because
you invented it, fine.  You want a patent on the
champagne gnome because you invented it, and it uses a
basic gnome and a glass of champagne, fine.  But if I
invent the sparkling creamy jello gnome that uses as
its ingredients a basic gnome, a champagne gnome and a
chocolate eclair, I want the patent to that.

Okay, so maybe all the gnomes can be kept in the same
rule, and the references to the patents just be
entries on the roster.  But at one point we seriously
considered a class system that was a game document
outside the rules, so that the details of a given
object weren't buried in the midst of a 100-page
ruleset.  Something separate, sortable, indexable,
etc.  I'd thought that these patents could be related
to the class system, but if we're talking about
transferring and sharing patents I guess that wouldn't
really work.  However, I still suggest the class
system be separate from (if acknowledged by) the
rules.

> Just don't give Dave lots and lots of extraneous
> work, that's all I'm saying.-

As compared to reinventing an in-game production and
commerce system? :)

-- Glotmorf


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