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Dragonchess (R). Commercial large chess variant. (16x10, Cells: 124) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Sat, Jan 14, 2012 04:09 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Excellent. Nice over-all didactic, great for school kids, as the designers said. New_Chess. Or ages 12 to adults since the board is a good size. It is interesting to compare the two zones, Zonal. Zonal had Reshevsky endorsement, Reshevsky, Fischer and Nakamura being the top USA gms the last 100 years. Each zone is 12 squares and the boards differ by 16.

Jeremy Lennert wrote on Sat, Jan 14, 2012 05:34 AM UTC:
I'm no expert on these things, but while the patent's SUMMARY suggests it protects the game as a whole and also separately protects the board and the Q3 piece, the CLAIMS section in the patent never lists the board or the piece as a separate claim--only several versions of the full game. (And the game description appears to cover, roughly, any chess variant played on a cross-shaped board and including the orthodox pieces plus the Q3--or maybe some different specific piece, since 'three spaces in any direction' certainly seems like it could be construed as covering more than 8 directions).

So if I understand this correctly, neither the name nor the movement pattern of the piece is protected.  (Which makes sense, on account of all the prior art we've already cited.)

Though of course any original artwork you made to depict the piece is protected (no surprise there).

Lex Parker wrote on Sat, Jan 14, 2012 01:27 AM UTC:
1.	Trademark:
Dragon Chess Inc. has a US Patent No. 6,799,763 issued October 5, 2004 and
the Canadian Patent No. 2476144 . The trademark DRAGON CHESS was registered
in Canada under TMA600114 on January 1, 2004 and in the US under
Registration No. 2958948 on June 7, 2005.

2.	Patents:
Canadian Patent & U.S. Patent Number: 6,799,763
The present invention relates to a modified chess game for two players
comprising a chessboard having a central section having a first side and a
second side, said central section containing squares arranged in vertical
rows and horizontal rows, and a first field section located along the first
side of said central section and a second field section located along the
second side of said central section, wherein each of said first and second
field sections contain squares arranged in vertical rows and horizontal
rows; preferably at least twenty playing pieces for each player consisting
of ten pawns, one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and
at least two additional pieces. In a preferred embodiment the two
additional pieces are identical and can move a maximum of three squares in
any direction. The additional pieces are preferably adapted to represent
dragons. The board layout is patented as is the Dragon in context to this
game.

3.	Dragon:
We designed the Dragon, had it cast and like any piece of original art or
sculpture it is owned by the creator until sold.  It is NOT royalty-free!

4.	Any copy of these is an infringement on the game.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 02:23 AM UTC:
Yes 'tai shogi' and 'dai dai shogi' have a 'lion dog', which moves 1-3 squares on the queen lines.
Both these games are thought to be from the 15th century, if not earlier.
You can call these games war games, but in essence, they really are chess variants i would say.

I am guessing you did not know about this piece?
I don't know why you would copyright a piece like this, are you meaning you have copyrighted the name 'dragon' for a piece moving as you give?
Or copyrighting the name 'dragon'?
The chances of someone making a game calling a piece 'dragon' and giving it the moves of a 'lion dog' are probably a million to one.

I will be releasing a zrf to showcase many shogi pieces from the ancient shogi variants, the 'lion dog' is included, hope i'm not breaking the law (lol).

Jeremy Lennert wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 11:04 PM UTC:
I'm actually quite curious:  exactly what rights do you claim that you have to that piece?

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that game mechanics are not protected by copyright (at least in the US).  Furthermore, 'like a Queen but 3 spaces at most' is a trivial and obvious variation on a well-known piece; it has probably been independently invented thousands of times, all over the world, long before Dragonchess showed up.

You're also not the first people to give the name 'dragon' to a chess piece, though you might be the first ones with that exact name/movement combination.

So what precisely is it that you claim is protected, and what rights do you assert over it?

Anonymous wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 08:15 PM UTC:
Dai Dai Shogi is a difficult game to learn and play, resembling a war game
more than a chess game.  We created the Dragon and own the rights to it. 
The other pieces are all royalty-free.  All pieces and moves are the same
as in chess with the exception of the Dragon that moves like a queen in any
direction and in a straight line but limited to 3 squares, no jumping.  The
rules remain the same.  The board is designed to play standard chess as
well.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 01:34 PM UTC:
yes it moves 1-3 squares on the queen lines.
oops yeah and no jumps, slider.

piece is from dai dai shogi, 'lion dog'.

Jörg Knappen wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 12:29 PM UTC:
The wording on the game maker's website is not very clear, but I interpret this dragon as a simple Q3 (a queen restricted to 3 steps in either direction). Nothing fancy here, no jumps.

Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 07:57 AM UTC:
I am not trying to 'coopt' any piece, I am just trying to catalogue them and describe what they are in terms of simpler pieces. 'Pasha' is no invention of mine, it is a problematist name for Prince+Alibaba that superseded an unsatisfactory derived name that I had previously used for that piece.

All I can say about the speed is that whenever I tried reading the site it took ages to open each page while a parallel implementation of Internet Explorer opened several pages of a site that itself is far from fast. I did notice that the site uses a lot of graphics and that was what seemed to be taking up the time. Is there a text-only version? If so, a link to that should perhaps be included as well.

On a positive note I see that the error that a mentioned about files has been fixed.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 01:26 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This looks a great game, love the dragon piece, also i think the extra side squares are useful, i'm sure they will be used.
Site loads fine to me.

📝Hans Bodlaender wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2012 08:38 PM UTC:
Yes, the game looks quite interesting, and from the pictures of the website, it certainly is beautifully made.

Lex Parker wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2012 08:23 PM UTC:
As in any other version of chess, the point is to provide an interesting and challenging variation... this is simply a game and for most people that is all they want. As noted by the site's author chess has been modified over the years. The game has been distributed in both Canada and the USA for the past several years. We have introduced it to school children who have all enjoyed it and most preferred the challenge over chess.

📝Hans Bodlaender wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2012 07:48 PM UTC:
I don't understand the comment by Doug. What is the point that is tried to be made?

Lex Parker wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2012 04:35 PM UTC:
Just reviewed the site and it does load very quickly so I do not understand the comment on being slow.

Doug wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2012 03:54 PM UTC:
A piece from a game hundreds of years old is an 'example' of something with a ridiculous Gilman name? It was never more clear that you are trying to coopt every piece ever invented.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2012 07:58 AM UTC:
(1) This variant has 16 files, not the 10 indexed.
(2) The maker's own website is an infernally slow one and it might be worth noting any significantly unusual rules on this page.

I have added this variant's Dragon to Man and Beast 11 alongside Tai Shogi's Lion Dog as an example of a Lorisian Stepping Pasha.

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