Please allow me to preface this thread with the fact that I'm a HUGE VEX fan; I'm especially a fan of the people who make VEX such a great program. And, I'm NOT a patent attorney.
Reviewing the 2009-2010 VEX Competition,
Clean Sweep, it seems the rules are consistent with FIRST's recently granted
Cooperation Patent. VEX's
Strength of Schedule Points is defined as,
Strength of Schedule Points (SP) – The second basis of ranking teams. Strength of Schedule points are awarded in the amount of the score of the losing alliance in a Qualifying Match.
seem to satisfy the patent's summary,
... a first participating player, team, or alliance is motivated to cooperate with a second participating player, team, or alliance by rewarding the first participating player, team, or alliance for assisting the second participating player, team, or alliance to achieve a higher score than might otherwise have been the attainable.
Since it seems logical that the common person should be able to understand if they are violating someone's intellectual property rights, I would like to pose the following question to everyone,
Do you think VEX needed to request permission from FIRST for Clean Sweep?
I have NO insider information on what agreements VEX has with FIRST, so this is simply a hypothetical question based on an actual scenario rather than a question of what VEX has done or must do; I'm sure VEX is thorough in their implementation of their competitions.
What do you think ... vote if you'd like,
Lucien