Could you patent a book-long method? Eg an RPG like Dungeons & Dragons?

Factual Questions
1

Most books fall under copyright, but what about a book that fleshes out a method that would mainly fall under patent law, that really requires the whole book for the method to exist in full? I know technically you could submit a 300-page patent, but is this a burden for patent offices?

I’m thumbing through my copy of Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, a 250-large-page book fleshing out the D&D role-playing system. In my head I’m trying to translate it into patent-application formatting (what the system would have needed to submit if they wanted to patent D&D from the beginning), but the more I think about it, the patent length would be something akin to the entire book. Of course some of the book falls under copyright like the the exact prose, but this isn’t the core/heart/spirit of the game. The core/heart is that it’s a process/method, really. But how the hell would you protect that without the patent being a book-to-patent translation of basically every paragraph? The patent would have to have ridiculously long and detailed paragraphs like:

[1279] A 1st-level wizard may cast “Detect Undead”, this spell being in the schools of magic of “Divination” and “Necromancy”, having a range of 0, a duration of 3 turns, a casting time of 1 round, and an area-of-effect of 60’ + 10’/level. When cast, the spellcaster is able to detect all undead creatures out to the range of the spell, in the direction the caster is facing…

And so on for 250 pages of spells, number charts, etcetcetc…

Furthermore, the “CLAIMS” section of a patent (extremely tricky wording that mainly only a patent lawyer can write) can be said to be the most important and defining, and yet the claims section is usually rather short. Even if you basically copy-and-pasted an entire RPG manual into the “DETAILS OF THE INVENTION” patent section (in which basic prose paragraphs are allowed like the above), would that even really protect it without a claims section that had the same information? Or could the claims section say “…in the manner described in the Details section”. I don’t think anyone on Earth would like translating D&D handbook into CLAIMS patent language.

I guess there could be a condensed version of an RPG system, e.g.:
“A process in which people sit at a table and create characters then play the roles out in a fictional setting.”
Maybe that would succeed better than a 250-page patent, if it were creative enough?

This article says a court ruled that the structure of an RPG card-game was NOT covered by copyright.

RPGs are just one example. There are lots of other things that would be book-long descriptions of methods/processes. Do patents this long exist?
Thanks for any help as always!!! :slight_smile:

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Why would you want a long, detailed patent? Someone could change one detail and rightfully claim that your patent does not cover it. It’s already very common to get around patents by finding a slightly different way to achieve the same goal. Even way back in the 18th century, James Watt came up with this contraption because someone else had a patent for the crank.

4

As a rule, the rules for playing games usually aren’t considered patentable.

As to the general issue of a book-length patent, yes they do exist. 300 pages isn’t even close to the longest you could find. For instance, here’s one I was looking at today, that runs 328 pages. I’ve seen others that topped 1000 pages. For some biotech applications, those lengths are typical.

5

Part of the reasons would be to prevent just such an occurrence. The patent doesn’t have to claim every detail to block later patents, merely describing them would act as a prior art bar to the later patents.

Some patents will list every single possible option, even if they aren’t ones actually intended to be used in their marketed product, just to forestall these attempts.

6

Are you trying to say this intrinsically–meaning you think game rules don’t line up with the general heart/core/spirit/definition of patent law, being the quantification of a process/method–or in practice, i.e. that game patents aren’t usually granted and/or court rulings have gone against someone trying to sue for their game patent?

I feel that a new game process is 100% in the realm of patent law by very definition, core, heart, and spirit. How else would you protect a game? Board games and card games can be patented and have been. Also, in general, any software that presents a new/novel idea can potentially be patented (by definition and general consensus on this issue) which of course includes software for games as a consequence. So if board games, card games, and software games, can be patented, could you be more specific about how you’re saying games can’t be patented? Do you mean they just usually fail, and it’s rare that people achieve these types of protections? Even then, wouldn’t it thus make sense to proceed with a game idea in an extremely determined manner, to get things right, because it is possible, especially in extremely professional scenarios? Like if you want to start a big company or just work with one?

7

Although yes, game mechanics cannot be patented - the essence of the game is not 300 pages; it’s tracking (AFAIK - not a dungeon master) assorted attributes and a means for evaluating consequences of interactions and how they affect those attributes. (Maybe “Each character rolls 20-sided dice, multiply dice times attribute value times a listed formula or factor yielding a fight result, and subtract the difference between their fight results from the characters”. )
The character names and races and attribute values may be copyright… to the extent that anything could be.

It seems to me this would be described by a small document - about 10 or 20 pages absolute max - and details (like what level strength and magic an Orc has) are irrelevant to the method being patented… unless there are no formulas and everything is a table lookup - but that option (table lookup) took me only a few words to describe.

8

Did you read the link in the second post? It sums up most of this. Key point is understanding the difference between patenting the rules of a game, and patenting the mechanics of a game. I was addressing the former, since your example of a patent on the D&D manual would basically just be a list of rules. The mechanics of the game would deal more with the physical presentation of the game, and how you manipulate things like dice, player tokens, and the like.

There is, of course, a large grey area where the two overlap, which is why we still have court cases being decided on these issues.

9

I was a Patent Examiner. While a method can be patented, it HAS to be useful. It has to solve a problem. It has to be repeatable by someone of average skill in the art. It cannot solve a fictitious problem because it has to be something of use you could, upon request, demonstrate to a Patent Examiner. Does that help? ALSO! You cannot include trademarked names in anywhere in your patent application.