Quote: Original post by Torvald
Qouted myself here because I don't think it's been clearly answered. Given that any protection has expired if both of these were created today how would this be handled in a leagl manner? are they diffrent enough to avoid conflict? Is it mainly look or process that is of concern?

Rules can't be copyrighted.

They could hypothetically be patented, as tsloper says. But they have to be applied for, unlike copyrights which come automatically. Also, I haven't ever heard of any cases in games (computer or otherwise) where the rules were patented - are there any?