You copyright a specific work and a halo of "derivative works" around it.
You trademark terms.
You patent a process.
Absent a patent (and the chance to do that lapsed ages ago), the main argument that Hasbro's lawyers can make is one of copyright and derivative copyright, since OSRIC isn't actually using any specific TSR terms (I presume...doing so would be so stupid that we wouldn't need to have this discussion).
So, using any actual to-hit charts is out. Any presentation that's too close to a to-hit chart or to the THAC0 system is also out. Being a fairly simple concept, that doesn't leave a lot of ways to present the unpatented mechanic without infringing on a copyrighted presentation, especially since the derivative works halo has no set size...the more money you're willing to pour into lawyers, the bigger the halo gets, in general.
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Date: 2008-03-13 06:16 pm (UTC)You trademark terms.
You patent a process.
Absent a patent (and the chance to do that lapsed ages ago), the main argument that Hasbro's lawyers can make is one of copyright and derivative copyright, since OSRIC isn't actually using any specific TSR terms (I presume...doing so would be so stupid that we wouldn't need to have this discussion).
So, using any actual to-hit charts is out. Any presentation that's too close to a to-hit chart or to the THAC0 system is also out. Being a fairly simple concept, that doesn't leave a lot of ways to present the unpatented mechanic without infringing on a copyrighted presentation, especially since the derivative works halo has no set size...the more money you're willing to pour into lawyers, the bigger the halo gets, in general.