As I mentioned, the Icehouse patent has expired. Perhaps the
piecepack specification, version 23.5, will one day incorporate
Icehouse pieces or something like them.

Here is an exchange I recently had on the Icehouse list.

Ron H-E

*****

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:19:45 -0700
To: icehouse@...
From: Ronald Hale-Evans <rwhe@...>
Subject: ICE: IceGammon, Fizzbin, piecepack (response to Glenn)

<irrelevant matter snipped>

...I have extensive notes from playtesting that I intend to
incorporate into the next version of the IceGammon rules, but may not
get around to it for a while, as I have been focusing less on Icehouse
games and more on piecepack games <http://www.piecepack.org/>, as the
Icehouse specification is patented, whereas the piecepack
specification is in the public domain, and I am more interested in
working with a free game system (free as in free speech, not free
beer; see <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/>). Despite the currently
small number of piecepack games, as opposed to the relatively large
number of Icehouse games, more and more piecepack games are being
released (one guy is writing a book of 100 piecepack games), and my
belief is that the piecepack is at the cutting edge of game system
development.

Ron H-E

*****

From: "Ross Andrews" <rbandrews@...>
To: <icehouse@...>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:22:10 -0500
Subject: ICE: RE: IceGammon, Fizzbin, piecepack (response to Glenn)

>Icehouse specification is patented

"Method of Manipulating and Interpreting Playing Pieces."

Andy Looney said somewhere that you could make any game you wanted with
little ptramidal playing pieces, and his patent wouldn't cover it, but if
you made a game like Icehouse with *three* sided pyramids, then he could sue
you.

At this point, however, the patent is expired anyway, so he can't even do
that.

Here's the patent, for those interested:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/net
ahtml/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ft90&s1='4936585'.WKU.&OS=PN/4
936585&RS=PN/4936585

-Ross Andrews
rbandrews@...
http://geekfu.org
$eval='eval($eval)';eval($eval);

*****

From: "Ross Andrews" <rbandrews@...>
To: <icehouse@...>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:28:41 -0500
Subject: ICE: Lame base-covering email

I can't actually find the place where he said that his patent had expired,
so I'm beginning to think he might not have said it at all. Take that part
of my previous email with a metric ton of salt, please....

-Ross Andrews
rbandrews@...
http://geekfu.org
$eval='eval($eval)';eval($eval);

*****

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:50:09 -0400
To: icehouse@..., <icehouse@...>
From: Buddha Buck <bmbuck@...>
Subject: Re: ICE: Lame base-covering email

At 04:28 PM 09-14-2001 -0500, Ross Andrews wrote:
>I can't actually find the place where he said that his patent had expired,
>so I'm beginning to think he might not have said it at all. Take that part
>of my previous email with a metric ton of salt, please....

He may not have said it (people don't like to advertise that their patents
have expired), but I've said it in the past. Patents apparently require
upkeep maintenance payments, and the 2nd such payment (at 8 years) wasn't
made -- and the grace period has since expired. The information is
available at the USPTO website.

*****

--
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