[EricH]

Just as a note or two: The patent was issued in 2004, based on the FRC 2003 game. At that time, the only FIRST-related competitions were FRC, FLL, and possible JFLL. FVC (now IFI's VRC and FIRST's FTC) was still in the planning phases for the pilot. So ANY violations are after the patent was issued.

However, while the patent claim comprises 8 elements, as Richard pointed out, the rest of the patent is also important (otherwise, it wouldn't be there, riiight?). If you read the patent, it's pretty much the game rules from the 2003 FRC game. So it's pretty easy to counter that the patent covers only the methods in said game. It's just as easy to say that the patent covers all methods of the sort, and anybody who uses said methods is in violation of the patent, no matter who they are. (OCCRA comes to mind--I think they use the loser's score modification to the winner's score, or used to.)

And, of course, all this discussion is moot if FIRST (and/or Dean) decides not to file a claim, or if IFI and FIRST have already worked out some arrangement.