March Board and Card Game Patents

Gaming machines with board game theme

Apparently, Monopoly and so on in a Vegas style machine.

Board game and method of play

Some sort of three-dimensional game with questions. It appears to be educational, for teenagers, and includes some electronics to display the score.

Play four poker

Poker, where you can only select 4 cards out of 5. Why? I don't know. To eliminate flushes, straights, and full-houses? Furthermore, you play against the house, who gets 6 cards to choose from, instead of 5.

Roulette alternative card game

This game kind of simulates Roulette using a deck of cards. I thought the fun part of Roulette was watching the ball go round and round.

Systems and methods for skill game awards

Nope. I don't get the point of this one. It claims to be a method of determining how much to pay out after a game of skill. The answer: randomly.

To summarize an example:

1) Player pays a buy-in amount to allow him to play a game.

2) Apparatus generates a randomly selected award amount for the current game that a player may win by successfully completing a game of skill.

3) Apparatus generates a randomly selected amount that is to be added to the award amount generated in (2) if an amount greater than or equal to said randomly selected amount exists in an adjustment pool. Add the amount so determined to award amount generated in (2) and subtract the amount from the adjustment pool.

4) Display total award amount that can be won by successfully completing a skill game by a player.

5) Begin a game of skill that can be completed successfully by an average person. If said game of skill in (5) is completed successfully by a player, pay the displayed award amount. If the game of skill is not completed successfully, so indicate and player loses amount of buy-in.

Duhhhh. But wait, here's another example:

1) Player pays a buy-in amount to allow him to play a game.

2) Apparatus generates a randomly selected award amount for the current game that a player may win by successfully completing a game of skill.

3) Apparatus determines if amount returned to players over multiple games is less than a predetermined amount. If said amount returned to players is less than said predetermined amount then reduce skill requirements to complete a predetermined game of skill. If the amount returned to players is greater than or equal to the predetermined amount then provide no adjustment to said skill requirements to complete a predetermined game of skill.

4) Display total award amount that can be won by successfully completing a skill game by a player.

5) Begin a game of skill that can be completed successfully by an average person.

6) If said game of skill in (5) is completed successfully by a player, pay the displayed award amount. If the game of skill is not completed successfully, so indicate and player loses amount of buy-in.

Duhhhh squared.

Entertainment game

I like this one. The guy is apparently sick of "Survivor"-like TV programs:

Among the most popular programs appearing on television recently are "contests", most often pitting one or more of a group of players or contestants against another. Although initially there may be a moderate level of cooperation among one or more of the players, such alliances are short-lived because there can finally be only one "winner" in that type of program structure. Self-interest, scheming, mistrusts, half-truths and sometimes outright lies and treacheries are often the main characteristics of such programs. While these characteristics mimic some of the less professional characteristics of business and of overall American and like societies at this time, emphasizing them repeatedly on TV is arguably not the best direction to take for a medium with such a high degree of influence on values. Besides, one of the major roles of entertainment is to provide respite from everyday; such negative shows do nothing toward that goal.

He instead lauds the opposite kind of program, "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?":

One glimmer of hope that approached emphasizing what were once the more traditional and kinder American values of friendliness, cooperation, trust and truth first appeared a few TV seasons ago as the highly popular "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?".TM. quiz show.

So his "invention" is kind of the opposite of Survivor, where the player brings more people into the game to help him win. I guess the idea is that the player has to balance trying to win it all for himself, and possibly failing, vs sharing the winnings, with a better chance of success.

Another dumb patent, but a nice sentiment.

Card game

An interactive poker game. Each player is dealt a bunch of cards and tosses some of them into a communal discard pile. These are then flipped over and players can swap their cards with the discarded cards until everyone passes. High hand wins.


Two more March patents I accidentally included in February's post.

Yehuda