[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Natchez

... And, I'm NOT a patent attorney.

...What do you think ... vote if you'd like,
Lucien

I'm not an attorney, much less a patent attorney, nor have I ever played one on TV. Some of my favorite and least favorite people are patent attorneys. They are well paid, favorites of mine or not, and generally they worked hard to gain the qualifications for their jobs.

In working with patent attorneys over the years I have learned something about how they think. One thing I've learned is that to show that someone has infringed a patent claim that includes (comprises) several elements, you must show that the infringing product uses all of the elements.

The claim in FIRST's patent 7507169 comprises eight elements:

Spoiler for 7507619:

1. A method for fostering coopertition and gracious professionalism among students while inspiring an appreciation of science and technology, the method comprising: 1) establishing a contest played on a playing field with at least four robots, such robots designed and built with participation of such students, such contest requiring accomplishment repetitively of a designated physical task on the playing field, wherein: 2) (i) each robot is controlled by a distinct team of students and designed to repetitively accomplish the physical task, performance of which on the playing field by a given robot triggering attribution to a score based on frequency of achievement of the physical task by the given robot; and 3)(ii) the contest is conducted in matches between two competing alliances of the teams, each match including a plurality of teams from each alliance; 4) assigning a raw score after each match to each alliance based on frequency of achievement of the task by robots of each team in each such alliance; 5) determining a final score for a winning alliance in each match, such winning alliance having a raw score exceeding the raw score of the other alliance by enhancing the raw score of the winning alliance by adding to the raw score of the winning alliance the raw score of the other alliance, so that the winning alliance is thus motivated to cause the other alliance to achieve a high raw score, and the teams of each alliance must work cooperatively; 6) setting a final score for the other alliance in each match equal to the raw score achieved by that alliance; and 7) ranking the teams based on the final scores achieved in matches in which they participate; 8) so that the students, by engaging in the contest, are provided with an experience involving science and technology under processes as recited herein that motivate cooperation in the midst of competition for a highest final score on the playing field.

Did VEX use all of the elements claimed? Let's see:

1) establishing a contest played on a playing field with at least four robots, such robots designed and built with participation of such students, such contest requiring accomplishment repetitively of a designated physical task on the playing field,

yep, did that one

wherein: 2) (i) each robot is controlled by a distinct team of students and designed to repetitively accomplish the physical task, performance of which on the playing field by a given robot triggering attribution to a score based on frequency of achievement of the physical task by the given robot;

did that one, too

and 3)(ii) the contest is conducted in matches between two competing alliances of the teams, each match including a plurality of teams from each alliance;

and that one

4) assigning a raw score after each match to each alliance based on frequency of achievement of the task by robots of each team in each such alliance;

and that one

5) determining a final score for a winning alliance in each match, such winning alliance having a raw score exceeding the raw score of the other alliance by enhancing the raw score of the winning alliance by adding to the raw score of the winning alliance the raw score of the other alliance, so that the winning alliance is thus motivated to cause the other alliance to achieve a high raw score, and the teams of each alliance must work cooperatively;

seems like they did that one, or maybe a variant (?) with the same intent [edit: it can also be argued that the patent claim doesn't cover variants like the one used by VEX]

6) setting a final score for the other alliance in each match equal to the raw score achieved by that alliance;

did that one

and 7) ranking the teams based on the final scores achieved in matches in which they participate; 8) so that the students, by engaging in the contest, are provided with an experience involving science and technology under processes as recited herein that motivate cooperation in the midst of competition for a highest final score on the playing field.

and they did those two, also.

So it looks like FIRST might have a case for infringement.