During the past decade, the remarkable increase in the number and capabilities of personal computers ("PC"), combined with the growth and development of the Internet, has fueled the development and popular acceptance of a variety of different Internet-based forums that provide shared access and participation to communities of Internet users. These forums include web pages that can be downloaded and displayed concurrently by many different Internet users, Internet-based email systems that allow users to exchange email messages, chat rooms that provide a number of Internet users with the ability to exchange messages in real time, and a wide variety of different interactive, Internet-based gaming systems, such as fantasy football and computer-based versions of popular board and card games. A wide variety of Internet-based gambling systems are also currently available to Internet-users, including Internet-based casinos and sports waging systems. Many of the currently-available forums, including Internet-based gaming systems, are inherently constrained, or constrained for technical reasons, in the number of users that can concurrently participate in the game. For example, many popular interactive games are designed to accommodate between two and six players, such as Chess, Bridge, and various other computer-based implementations of traditional board and card games. As another example, real-time interactive systems, and even live Internet-based auction systems may be severely limited in the number of participants by interconnection bandwidth and server computer throughput. Many currently-available Internet-based gambling and wagering systems are of questionable legality, may have deleterious social effects, and are likely soon to be targets of legislative restrictions or prohibitions. However, wagering on future events have an almost universal appeal within human communities, and are likely to have continued and increasing appeal to communities of Internet users. Thus, a need has been recognized by Internet applications developers and service providers for an Internet-based forum that provides a legal, socially acceptable medium in which an unrestricted number of Internet-users can express a natural speculative and competitive interests in various types of future events.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds