Did VEX have to say Pretty Please?

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Can you be more specific about what you're disagreeing with?

I'm disagreeing with a FIRST lawsuit holding up in court.

The claim doesn't specify the "W+2L" formula. It says "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".

Exactly. No where in VEX's rules is the winning alliance's score added to the other alliance's score.

Also, claim 6 pertains to how to set the QPs for the losing alliance ("other alliance" is referring to the losing alliance referring to claim 5).

I agree that you can't patent an idea. The claims in the patent do not explicitly cover the qualifying format used in VEX. In my limited experience working with patents, it doesn't take much to circumvent a patent. Changing a very minute detail is usual plenty enough to get around it. VEX using wins and losses and NOT adding winner's and loser's score together (as claimed in claim 5) should be way more than enough needed to win a court case, if it came down to it.

This all being said, this is just an academic argument since I'd be shocked if FIRST ever tried to enforce the patent.