Patent Application
20090014959
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to playing cards.
2. Description of the Related Art
Packs of playing cards have long been used to play card games. Playing cards generally are referred to as having front faces that are directed toward the player holding the cards in his hand, and rear faces that are directed away from that player when the card are held in his hand. Because the invention herein utilizes depictions of faces on the cards (see discussion below), however, the terms “front side” and “rear side” of the cards will be used herein instead of “front face” and “rear face”.
Generally, packs of cards comprise fifty-two cards, with the front sides divided into four suits (clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts) having thirteen different values of each suit (ace through ten, jack, queen, and king). The rear side is generally some distinctive design, or decorative picture or scene. Generally the depiction of the values is in the form of a particular number of designators for the particular suit. Thus, a card that is the two of hearts shows two hearts, the four of spades shows four spades, and so forth.
There are numerous alternative playing cards having different indicia or different arrangements of indicia on the front side and in some cases, different numbers of cards in the deck. Some of these playing cards have more than one value on the front side of the card, and may be arranged in a manner analogous to or the same as dominos. These include the playing cards of Paine (U.S. Pat. No. 516,165) which has six suits and three colors with the card front sides having two rectangular centerpieces which together are in the shape of a domino. The playing cards of Kingwill (U.S. Pat. No. 645,961) have identical paired domino-like components on each front side.
The playing cards of Moller (U.S. Pat. No. 712,566) are in 26-card decks having divided front sides with the suits in specified pairs on the front sides. While the cards of Schick (U.S. Pat. Des. No. 212,239) also have divided front sides with different suits on each half, there does not appear to be a strict pairing of the suits.
The cards of Hancock (U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,358) are in a 48-card deck with the front side of each card divided into two by a diagonal dividing line, while the double denomination cards of Gleason, Jr. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,280,916) make up a 52-card deck having a divided front side also separated by a diagonal line.
Nielsen (U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,652) provides a deck of cards representative of a set of dominos, which are held in the hand in typical fan-like fashion and may be played as dominos are or as cards are played. This patent sets forth many advantages for having dominos in the form of cards, rather than the bulky heavy domino pieces that are typical.
The indicia on most card front sides, other than the jack, queen and king, are typically traditional symbols such as hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs, or in the case of the domino-related cards of Nielsen, are simply round spots (also called pips) identical to the spots on domino pieces. These spots or other indicia are not used to convey information or to be decorative. Furthermore, the prior cards do not coordinate the design on the rear side with the indicia on the front side of the cards.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide playing cards where the indicia on the front side of the cards are face depiction spots, preferably face depiction spots that convey information, arranged in the manner of domino spots. It is a further object of the invention to provide cards where the design on the rear side of the cards may be coordinated with the face depiction spots.
Other objects and advantages will be more fully apparent from the following disclosure and appended claims.
The invention herein is a deck of playing cards having front sides with face depiction spots on each half of the front side of the card. The face depiction spots may be arranged on the two halves as are domino spots. The appearance of the rear sides of the cards is preferably coordinated with the face depiction spots. Other objects and features of the inventions will be more fully apparent from the following disclosure and appended claims.
The present invention provides playing cards having front sides with face depiction spots arranged in the manner of domino spots. Preferably the rear side of each card also has at least one face depiction that is related thematically to the face depiction spots on the front side of the cards. The cards preferably have the same generally rectangular configuration and the standard size of playing cards as known in the art; however, changes in the shape and size may be made without departing from the invention herein.
As used herein, in most of the embodiments of the invention herein, the term “face depiction spots” or “face depiction” preferably means photographs or artistic renderings of human or animal faces (heads) and may include a depiction of more of the chosen animal that just the face or head. The face depictions may be realistic depictions of faces or may be stylized, but are preferably recognizable as faces or as including faces. It is recognized however that any selected group of images not containing faces, such as scenes or plants or plain spots, may be used in the “face depiction spots” without departing from the invention herein. Again, to minimize confusion with the term “face depiction spots”, the terms “rear side” and “front side” are used instead of “rear face” and “front face” when discussing the two sides of the cards. Also, the terms “deck” and “pack” are used interchangeably herein.
These face depiction spots 14 are preferably arranged in the same manner as the spots on dominos as shown in
The size of the face depiction spots 14 may be larger or smaller relative to the size of the card 10 than that shown in the figures herein without departing from the invention, so long as the face depiction spot 14 is large enough to be visible during use and is small enough to fit on the card 10 without overlapping any other face depiction spots.
Most preferably, the face depiction spots 14 are designed to show specific information. Thus, they may educate the purchaser or recipient of the cards as to a medical specialty of the source of the cards or may in other ways provide useful educational information to the recipient or user of the cards. As can be seen from
Preferably, as shown in
When the cards are used to communicate information about a business or non-profit entity, additional information (not shown herein) on the entity, such as name, address and contact information, as well as advertising and they like, may also be provided on the card, such as on the rear side of the card.
Alternative embodiments of the invention herein include cards with other human faces, and may depict other medical “before and after” faces on the two sides of the cards as discussed above with respect to the preferred face depiction spot. Alternatively, the human faces may be any desired human faces.
In further alternative embodiments of the invention, the face depiction spots 14 may have animal heads (faces) or may also include a depiction of the whole animal, and the face depiction spots, as shown in
Optional additional indicia may be placed on each card. For example, as is done in the case of standard playing cards, small indicia may be placed on opposite corners of the cards. In this invention, such number indicia as shown in
While it is preferred that the number of cards and overall design of the face depiction spots on the front sides of the cards of the invention correspond to the number of dominos in a set and their overall design of spots, included within the invention are decks of cards where the maximum number of face depiction spots on a half of a front side is not six. Thus, rather than having a maximum number of six spots (face depiction spots) on a half, there may be cards in the deck having more face depiction spots (e.g., 7 or 8 or more), thus allowing a deck with more cards. Alternatively, the playing cards of the invention may be part of smaller decks in which no card has more than, for example, five face depiction spots on a half. Preferably, the minimum number of cards in the deck to provide a sufficient number of plays for the players is 28.
The playing cards of the invention having multiple face depiction spots on the playing cards are preferably played using standard domino rules as known in the art. Thus, there are preferably 2-4 players who are dealt 7 cards each. The player with identical halves on one of the front cards starts the game, and if more than one player has a card with identical halves (or if no one did), the first to play may be chosen with a coin toss or other random selection method known in the art. To play the game, the players in playing sequence places a card down on the playing surface, matching the number of face depiction spots on one half of the card to a card already on the table having the same number of face depiction spots on one or both halves until a player runs out of cards. One half of each card being played needs to be placed adjacent to a card that has already been played, and in particular needs to be placed next to a half of the already played card that matches a half of the new card being played. If that half is not exposed (in other words if a card has already been played on that side of that half of the already played card, a new card cannot be placed there. Players pass if they cannot play. If players play in teams, if a member of a team wins, so does the team. If play cannot continue and all players still have cards, the player with the lowest number of points wins. Of course, other rules acceptable to the players may be followed using the cards of the invention.
For playing cards of the invention having a single face depiction spot (e.g., animal depiction) on each half of the playing cards, there are again preferably 28 cards, with 7 different figures in the deck of cards. Each figure appears 7 times in the deck, once with each of the other 6 figures and once with a duplicate of that figure. The numeric score kept during play is a count of number of cards left when the game finishes or the sum of the numbers on the halves 16 of the cards left, or alternative methods of counting and scoring may be used as desired.
While the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, it will be appreciated that numerous variations, modifications, and embodiments are possible, and accordingly, all such variations, modifications, and embodiments are to be regarded as being within the spirit and scope of the invention.
