Agreed that it's not exactly the same, and taking the motivations into account there are some noticeable differences, merely very similar — especially since iirc Duke explicitly mentions the leaping falcon (i. e., indeed, the Bison) and 10×10 board as (rejected, in his case, but possible as subvariants) alternatives and the setup with falcons in the corners is his second favourite according to the comments on that page. Honestly I mostly just find it interesting that much of it seems to have been reinvented independently — suggests that, for all his self‐importance (patenting a variant? Really?), he (and, indeed, you) may have been onto something.
It is a bit of an odd artifact that leaping pieces tend to be named after non‐leaping animals: Camels, Giraffes, Bisons, Buffaloes… while the piece with a bird's name (the rook — indeed even in Japanese the ‘Flying’ Chariot) is among the most easily blocked, at least of the orthodox set.
I don't see as great an issue with the Falcon name clash though; after all we don't distinguish leaping and stepping elephants, dabbabas, ⁊c., or Chinese and (albeit much less popular) Korean cannons by name. And since the name is also used for the forward‐bishop/backward‐rook piece…
Agreed that it's not exactly the same, and taking the motivations into account there are some noticeable differences, merely very similar — especially since iirc Duke explicitly mentions the leaping falcon (i. e., indeed, the Bison) and 10×10 board as (rejected, in his case, but possible as subvariants) alternatives and the setup with falcons in the corners is his second favourite according to the comments on that page. Honestly I mostly just find it interesting that much of it seems to have been reinvented independently — suggests that, for all his self‐importance (patenting a variant? Really?), he (and, indeed, you) may have been onto something.
It is a bit of an odd artifact that leaping pieces tend to be named after non‐leaping animals: Camels, Giraffes, Bisons, Buffaloes… while the piece with a bird's name (the rook — indeed even in Japanese the ‘Flying’ Chariot) is among the most easily blocked, at least of the orthodox set.
I don't see as great an issue with the Falcon name clash though; after all we don't distinguish leaping and stepping elephants, dabbabas, ⁊c., or Chinese and (albeit much less popular) Korean cannons by name. And since the name is also used for the forward‐bishop/backward‐rook piece…