Patent Application Number: 2009200684
Please help IP Australia examine the application by evaluating the relevance of the publicly submitted prior art to the patent application.
Peer-to-Patent forwards the Top 10 most relevant prior art submissions and their annotations to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.Review this prior art and click on the thumbs up (or down) to indicate whether this submission should be forwarded to IP Australia.If you login then you can add an annotation by typing in the box at the bottom of the screen to comment on the relevance of the prior art to the claims of the patent application. Submitted by: Jimmy TiLast updated: about 1 year ago 0 thumbs up 0 thumbs down
| Summary / Description | A gaming method includes spinning the plurality of reels within a display window of the gaming machine. A subset of the spinning reels is then selected for use in determining the bonus game outcome. Non-selected reels are removed from a player's view. The machine then determines if the selected reels produce a winning game outcome. |
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| Type of Prior Art | Issued Patents - US |
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| Country | United States of America |
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| Patent/Application # | 7351144 |
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| Kind Code | United States (US) - Reexamination Certificate Seco... - B2 |
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| Patentee Name | Bally Gaming Inc. |
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| Relevant Pages, Columns, or Lines | |
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| URL | http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/... |
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| Filing Date | July 8, 2003 |
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| Additional Information | |
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Excerpt A gaming method includes spinning a plurality of reels within a display window of the gaming machine. A subset of the spinning reels is then selected for use in determining the game outcome. The non-selected reels are removed from a player's view within the display window. The selected reels are the appealingly repositioned into a closer grouping within the display window. The gaming machine then determines if the selected and repositioned reels produce a winning game outcome. A prize is awarded if a winning game outcome is achieved. |
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Claims
A method of gaming comprising: selecting a set of symbols for display to a player in a set of display positions corresponding to respective ones of a plurality of reels; determining a game round outcome based on the selected symbols; determining that a feature game round should occur; and determining a feature game round outcome by determining an optimal winning combination of symbols from a feature subset of the set of symbols comprising more symbols than the number of reels.
| Relevance | Very similar to the gaming method described in the prior art. |
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A method of gaming as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the step of re-assigning the display positions corresponding to each symbol in the optimal winning combination so that the optimal winning combination is displayed in a win line extending across the reels.
| Relevance | The prior art also specifically talks about repositioning the selected subset of reels with symbols. |
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A method of gaming as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 5, wherein the optimal winning combination for the feature game round is a combination of symbols from the feature subset that corresponds to the highest prize according to prize data for the game round.
| Relevance | The gaming method described by prior art also determines the optimal winning combination from the selected subset of reels with symbols. |
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A method of gaming as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 5, wherein the optimal winning combination for the feature game round is a combination of symbols from the feature subset that corresponds to the highest prize according to prize data different from prize data for the game round.
| Relevance | The gaming method described by prior art also determines the optimal winning combination from the selected subset of reels with symbols. |
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A method of gaming as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 8 wherein the step of determining that a feature game round should occur is made on the basis of a random event.
| Relevance | The bonus round described in prior art could be determined by the machine, which may well be a random event. |
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A method of gaming as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 8 wherein the step of determining that a feature game round should occur is made on the basis of player choice.
| Relevance | The bonus round described in prior art could be determined by player selection. |
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Computer program code which when executed by a computer causes the computer to implement computer causes the computer to implement the method of gaming of anyone of claims 1 to 11.
| Relevance | The gaming method described in prior art is similarly implemented as a computer program code that could be executed on gaming machines. |
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A computer readable medium comprising the program code of claim 35.
| Relevance | The gaming method described in prior art is similarly implemented as a computer program code that could be executed on gaming machines. |
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A data signal comprising the computer program code of claim 35.
| Relevance | The gaming method described in prior art is similarly implemented as a computer program code that could be executed on gaming machines. |
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Transmitting the computer program code of claim 35.
| Relevance | As part of the manufacturing process, the computer program code has to be transmitted onto the gaming machine from the development computer. I think this claim is sort of a given. |
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United States