EP1159044B1

EP1159044B1 - Playing cards

Info

Publication number: EP1159044B1
Application number: EP00905178A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Ramsay Wood
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1999-02-22
Filing date: 2000-02-22
Publication date: 2003-09-24
Anticipated expiration: 2020-02-22
Also published as: WO2000050134A1; AU754354B2; AU2680700A; JP2002537080A; GB2347088A; ATE250447T1; EP1159044A1; DE60005492T2; DE60005492D1; GB9904031D0; ES2208276T3

Abstract

A pack of cards has differing designs on the backs of the cards, as well as differing designs on the front faces of the cards; the designs can be coordinated to enable a different set of cards to be formed according to the markings on the rear faces of the cards. The cards may have conventional ace to king markings on their obverse faces, and a series of short lines of text on their reverse faces such that when a three or four card trick of a conventional game, eg bridge, is formed, a sentence or poem may be formed by the rear faces. With pictorial images on the backs of the cards, comic strips, commercial adverts, or other patterns or sequences can be made. Extra points for a trick may be awarded if the cards also make a set with the rear faces, or for the number of sets made with the rear faces, according to the rules of the game. The rear face of the cards may have only a portion which differs from the rest, eg identical outer portions and different central areas. The poems may be clerihews or haiku.

Description

This invention relates to playing cards and, in particular, to bifunctional packs of playing cards which may be used to play a variety of entertaining and stimulating card games as well as acting as an informative advertising and educational medium, compendium or catalogue.

Playing cards have been known for centuries and in a very wide variety. A pack of playing cards conventionally consists of a set of individual cards of which one side of each card (the back) is identical throughout the pack, the other side of each card (the face) bearing one among a variety of different designs. The classical "standard playing card" pack consists of fifty-two cards where the fifty two different face designs consist of four "suits", conventionally called clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades, and where each suit (of thirteen cards) has a number or character associated with it, conventionally ace, two to ten, Jack, Queen and King. Additionally, some playing card games require extra cards having a special symbol on them (conventionally called a Joker) which, according to the rules of the game being played, may substitute for a variety of other cards, or may have its own particular role in the game played.

The identical back sides of the cards in a pack are identical predominantly in order that a card player may hold the cards, usually in a single hand and fanned out, with the identical backs visible to the other players and the different face designs visible only to the player holding the cards. Since the other players can see the backs, the backs all need to be identical in order that the other players cannot detect what cards the player holding the cards is holding.

This arrangement of identical backs is effectively necessary for competitive card playing games (especially where the game is played for pecuniary gain), but is not of any particular value in games played for entertainment.

US-A-4428582 discloses apparatus for educational games in the form of a pack of cards with letters on their faces and numbers on their backs, each letter being paired with each number once, so no two cards are the same, but each letter appears on the faces of several (usually 3, 4 or 5) cards. Such a pack may be used to play a variety of letter or number games, but cannot be used to play any standard card games.

I have now found that a variety of entertaining games may be produced by constructing a set of playing cards with the face sides bearing their conventional, or relatively conventional, set of markings and the backs bearing differing designs, but which are coordinated with the designs on the faces in a predetermined fashion. The precise fashion may depend upon the nature of the game to be played with the cards. Thus, the distinguishing feature of packs of playing cards according to my invention is that the coordination of two or more designs on the backs of two or more cards correlates with a coordination of the designs on the faces of those cards, in accordance with an appropriate set of predetermined design criteria.

Within this general concept, a very wide variety of new types of packs of playing cards can be devised. By way of example, the backs of some of the cards (or, of course, all of them) may bear words, and the arrangement of the words on the backs of the cards may be such that when the cards are assembled in accordance with a rule applying to the markings on the faces of the cards, the wording on the backs of the assembly of cards is coordinated, e.g. to construct a sentence or sentences, a message of some other sort, or a poem - for example a Clerihew, Haiku or some other short form.

Thus, it is possible, for example, to conceive of a set of playing cards with conventional ace to King markings on their faces and a series of short lines on their backs such that a conventional four-card trick such as is constructed during the course of a game of Bridge or Whist may constitute a quatrain such as a Clerihew, or three of them may be arranged to provide a Haiku fitting the classical rules for the construction of Haiku. One can then envisage scoring being dependent not merely on the number of tricks which a player collects at the end of a round, but additionally on how many of the sets of three or four cards, when assembled in appropriate order (e.g. rising or descending card face value) form a correctly structured Clerihew or Haiku. A correctly structured Clerihew formed from a set of four cards of which the face values are not all of the same suit might score a bonus.

In an alternative, sets of cards having face values in sequence may have on their backs individual sections of a complete poem. In such cases, it is often convenient to print, as well as wording, some indication on the backs of the cards as to whether a section of text constitutes the beginning, ending or middle portion of a poem which can be assembled by collecting a sequence of cards using a conventional set of game-playing rules, e.g. that of a stock pile and discard pile from which each player may pick in turn followed by a discard.

The coordination on the backs of the cards is not limited to text images, but may be, for example, a set of pictorial or visual images or mix of graphics, text and image which, for example, when assembled in sequence, could form a short "comic strip" or reflect some other pattern, sequence or relationship. Alternatively the assembly may be essentially visual with the cards, when placed together, showing an overall image made up of a number of sub-images, such as one commercial product in a range of such products. The placement of commercial material on the backs of the cards leads to potential commercial gain to organisations, companies or individuals who use the medium to advertise their products or services. Furthermore, the incorporation of a corporate, educational, governmental or other web site address along one edge of each card effectively reminds solo or group players 54 times per pack of the specific telecommunications link to each organisation's, company's or individual's richer store of further detail regarding the subject matter of each pack, or general information about the organisation, company or individual.

Working on the general basis of coordinating material on the backs and coordinating material on the faces of the cards, an enormously wide variety of packs of cards may be developed with associated "rules for play", with a consequent provision of both enjoyment, education (both academic and commercial) and amusement to the card players.

The inter-relationship of the backs and fronts of packs of cards in accordance with the present invention may be achieved by simple physical sorting of a set of backs on to a set of fronts, or it is possible to write relatively simple and straightforward computer programs to distribute the designs for the backs appropriately coordinated with the standard designs on the faces. In order to provide basic familiarity, it is preferred that the designs on the faces are relatively straightforward standard four suit card designs.

If it is desired to enable the cards to be used in competitive play, the differing designs on the backs of the cards may be restricted in area compared to the area of the entire card back so that a fan of cards shows only the back of the endmost one, i.e. the roughly chevron-shaped or L-shaped non-overlap areas all look the same. Of course, if such cards are dealt out in conventional fashion - to each player in rotation, one card on top of another, face down - a skilled observer can detect in which hand cards are, but not very easily. During play, the back of the card in the fan furthest from the player holding the fan may be easily obscured by the player's hand. However, if desired, feats of memory could be part of the rules of group play, so that the more face values a player could correctly memorise and reproduce from the differing back texts or images, the higher would be his final score, and - if the items so correctly memorised were products or educational or other promoted material - the higher the pleasure of the organisation, company or individual whose material is printed on the pack.

Accordingly, in a specific embodiment, a pack of playing cards according to the present invention has a set of differentiated face designs on the card faces and on the card backs a set of designs, each consisting of an outer portion identical on each card and inner portions which differ from card to card and which are coordinated with the designs on the faces as set out above.

Claims

Apparatus for playing a game comprising a pack of playing cards having differentiated face designs on all the playing card faces that being a conventional or substantially conventional set of playing card markings; rules to determine the method of game play; and
characterised in that a number of the playing card backs possess markings that are coordinated with the face designs found on the playing cards to enable the formation of a different type of set based on the markings found on the playing card backs, as determined by the rules of game play.
Apparatus as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the markings on the playing card backs comprise an outer portion identical on each card and an inner portion coordinated with face designs found on the playing cards.
Apparatus as claimed in Claim 1 or 2 wherein the markings on each of the playing card backs can be selected from the group comprising:

1) a selected sentence or group of sentences of a poem to be arranged in a set to form a completed poem;

2) selected frames of a cartoon strip to be arranged in a set to form the completed cartoon strip;

3) selected images to be arranged in a set to form a completed image of a commercial product.
Apparatus according to any one of Claims 1 to 3 wherein the pack comprises 52 cards and the face markings are four suits of ace to king markings.
Apparatus as claimed in any of the preceding Claims wherein the rules dictate inter alia that the playing cards are dealt out face down in a conventional manner to each player in rotation one card on top of another to completely obscure the markings on the previous dealt card.
Apparatus as claimed in any of the preceding Claims wherein the rules inter alia dictate that scoring during the course of game play is dependent not only upon the number of tricks that a player collects at the end of a round (determined by the face design of the playing cards), but also on how many of the completed sets (based upon the markings on the backs of the cards) are formed during each of the tricks at the end of a round.