As usual, I’m ignoring several patents for card shufflers and dealers.

Sudoku-type puzzle board game and method of play – Some kind of multi-player electronic Sudoku-like game.

Die retrieval game – A race game where you roll dice to move and bump players back, like in Sorry. However, you can also obtain control of the special die on the board and move it along toward a goal, rolling the special die and the regular die.

If another player lands on the special die, the die is returned to its original board location. You win the game either by moving the special die to a certain location, or by moving it a sufficient number of times to gain a certain point threshold.

Zodics board game – A design patent:

Device for and method of providing a poker game – Designed to encourage you to play more hands, you are allowed to dump some cards from your first hand, and then your subsequent hand is comprised of the cards that you dumped.

Method of playing a poker-type game – A Texas Hold’em themed lottery game. Each ticket is two random cards from 36. The remaining 16 are used to create a) four opponents’ hands, and b) the community cards. You win a share of the large prize if you beat all of the opponents, and the smaller prize if you beat all of the other players.

Playing card viewing device – A box with a peephole and mirrors.

Combination cards and board game – A design patent by Mat Barefoot S.R.I., Buenos Aires, including 71 cards and a board:

Systems, methods and articles to facilitate playing card games with selectable odds – Rather than a shuffler, this prints cards in a pseudo-random fashion, based on the desired odds for the house as input by the dealer.

Multistage wagering card game and method therefor – Apparently, Blackjack is too complicated, what with splitting, hitting, doubling down, etc. In this game, you get two cards, the dealer gets one up and one down, and you can fold or bet. That’s it.

Methods and devices for on-the-roll sports games – An American football board game with some real-time dice rolling elements called “On-the-Roll”. Claims to be applicable to other sports games, as well. I couldn’t find any other info on Google.

Significantly – as is becoming increasingly common – this and other patents in this list take pains to add a copyright notice, claiming that while it “doesn’t object” to the patent office making whatever copies are necessary to process the patent, the graphics, rules, and so on are covered under copyright and may not be used in other games.

As far as I can tell, this is a) unnecessary, as these are copyrighted without any further notice, and b) bogus, since, once submitted to the patent office, these can be copied for any reason related to the dissemination of the patent. But IANAL.

Multilevel online tournament – From Microsoft. As usual, Microsoft likes to patent obvious things translated to digital form, just because they’re now in digital form.

An online Swiss tournament, such as those used in numerous online games for many years.

Card game – By David Breese. “A card game that includes a first deck and a second deck of standard playing cards, a hat and a game board to facilitate playing of the card game.”

A hat?

Worn by the loser. And, oh yes: “While no particular type of hat is required, it is desired within the scope of the present invention that the hat have at least a portion that resembles the human buttocks.”

It’s this game. The money to buy this patent was earned through the sale of his Playboy collection.

Battle school – Sorry, nothing to do with Orson Scott Card. An educational RPG, where you overcome opponents and increase your stats by answering questions on the subject matter. Primarily intended as a computer game, the patent also claims use as a board game.

Arithmetic measurement system – A rummy card game. The cards includes proportionally sized numbers so as to aid in learning the numbers in relation to each other.

Very strangely formulated patent, formulated as a learning system rather than as a game, though it is essentially a game.

Random chance device for use in a game where cards are drawn during play – Adding a wild “spin card” to a game of UNO (for example). When drawn, spin the spinner and treat the spin card as whatever other random special card is indicated.

Hold’Em table game – A house-banked Hold’em game with tweaks.

Game apparatus – A roulette wheel with playing cards that is somehow different from previous roulette wheels with playing cards.

Competitive Sudoku board game – Sudoku for 2 to 9 players, taking turns placing numbers.

Stock car racing card game – A NASCAR racing card game by Thomas O’hara, with a die to determine track conditions.