Competitive game

• US 4,586,707 A
• Filed: 04/29/1985
• Issued: 05/06/1986
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/1982
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: David L. Mcneight, John G. Lawrence, Pauline Chorlton
• Original Assignee: David L. Mcneight, John G. Lawrence, Pauline Chorlton
• Inventors: McNeight, David L., Chorlton, Pauline, Lawrence, John G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Skogquist, Harland S.
• Application Number:
  US06/728,148
• Time in Patent Office: 372 Days
• Field of Search: 273/1 R, 273/139, 283/17, 434/119, 434/352
• US Class Current: 463/9
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 9/18 Question-and-answer games
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/073 all student stations being capable of presenting the same questions simultaneously

Abstract

A game primarily though not exclusively intended for mass-communication media such as radio, television and newspapers and periodicals, involves the answers to a set of questions being assembled, for example, as numbers, according to a predetermined explicit or problematic algorithm into an instruction such for example as a telephone number by means of which the first solver can identify himself and claim a prize.

Claims

1. A method of conducting a game by using a broadcasting arrangement broadcasting to an audience and a telephone network serving members of said audience and said broadcasting arrangement, comprising the steps of:

obtaining a pre-determined telephone number serving said broadcasting arrangement;

broadcasting to said audience a series of questions;

broadcasting to said audience an algorithm for manipulating the collective answers to said series of questions, which algorithm when correctly followed using correct answers to said series of questions will produce as a result said pre-determined telephone number, and which algorithm when not correctly followed using correct answers to said series of questions will not produce as a result said pre-determined telephone number;

broadcasting to said audience an instruction to carry out said algorithm, to treat the result produced thereby as a telephone number, and to call said resulting telephone number;

receiving at least the first call arriving thereafter at said pre-determined telephone number; and

declaring a call arriving at said pre-determined telephone number to be the first place winning call.

2. A method according to claim 1, further including the steps of:

obtaining at least one additional predetermined telephone number serving said broadcasting arrangement;

designing said algorithm such that, when correctly followed but using correct answers to less than all of said series of questions, it can produce as a result said at least one additional predetermined telephone number;

receiving at least the first call arriving at said at least one additional predetermined telephone number; and

declaring at least one call arriving at said at least one additional predetermined telephone number to be a winning call of less than first place rank.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein said broadcasting arrangement comprises a television station.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein said algorithm employs the answers to more than one but less than all of said series of questions.

5. A method according to claim 1, further including the steps of:

broadcasting together with each of said series of questions a plurality of possible answers and a code associated with each said possible answer; and

broadcasting to said audience an instruction to treat said codes as answers to the questions for purposes of carrying out said algorithm.