What is the US Chess policy on digital pens, like Livescribe and others like them used to keep notation?
There is none if the organizer does not prescribe a scoresheet for the competition and require its use.
Which is yet another reason why prescribing a scoresheet for the competition and requiring its use is an international standard best practice.
There are some digital pens that work on regular paper. So one could use the prescribed scoresheet with it.
How long will it be before it is not easy to tell whether a pen is a digital pen or not? I suspect it’ll happen in 2018.
LOL, I feel like Rip Van Winkle was supposed to feel. What is a digital pen?
I’ll 'fess up. I’ve been wondering exactly the same thing.
Bill Smythe
A digital pen, or smart pen, can capture the handwriting of a user and convert that analog information into digital data that cam be uploaded to a computer.
Until someone combines a digital pen with a chess engine and a way to feed suggested moves back to the player, I don’t think there’s much to worry about here.
Maybe the digital pen could send shock waves to the player’s hand, using Morse Code or something.
Bill Smythe
These pens could presumably transmit their output to a 3rd party, who could send moves to the player via some other means.
There was a FIDE tournament recently that banned players from using their own pens for just such a reason. I can’t remember offhand which one it was.
They should fall into the generic “electronic means of communication” category that is already covered under the US rules, c.f. 20.N.
-Matt
Some of the pens do have bluetooth capabilites.
The organizer/TD can ban digital pens. Any user of such a pen would have to demonstrate that it is not possible for the device to be connected to any other electronic transmitting device, a high bar. Even if the pen can actually write out the moves on the scoresheet provided, the organizer can be deemed to have the right to all scoresheets, both physical and electronic. Since he does not know how they are being used or misused, his right to possess them has been minimized.
I don’t think its reasonable to argue that the organizer has a right to ALL scoresheets. If so when you went home and made a copy, the organizer could take it from you.
That is a good point Kevin. If you were using a device that didn’t use special paper and were recording on the proscribed score sheet you would be giving that score sheet to the TD/Organizer etc if needed. It would be exactly like all the other score sheets etc. The copy in the pen would just be that, a copy.
15G. Ownership of scoresheets.
The scoresheets of all games in a tournament are the property of the sponsoring organization(s). If the organizer requires that a copy of each game score be submitted by the players, duplicate scoresheets must be provided, and players who fail to submit scoresheets may be penalized.
I looked up Livescribe which was mentioned in the initial post. It records everything you write AND hear. It can communicate with your smart phone and tablet in seemingly sophisticated ways.
What penalty [or penalties] can an organizer impose on a player who refuses to turn in a copy of the game played?? Is there some sort of fine that can be imposed? What can and has been done?
Larry S. Cohen
Not all versions do this, but yes, Livescribe 3 does this.
I’ve never thought about it before, because this rule seemed obviously correct - but further thought shows that as worded, it’s not.
Clearly, the tournament organizer does not have sole ownership of the scoresheets of all games. If the organizer did, then it would be practically impossible to produce any written chess material on a tournament (or match?)without the organizer’s permission. Further, if the organizer has sole ownership, then the comments (rule) that duplicate scoresheets must be provided and that a COPY of the game score be submitted by the player would also not make sense.
It seems that the rule implicitly admits that the players (each) own a copy of the game score in addition to the organizer, by stating that duplicate scoresheets must be provided (this would be necessary only if the players have a right to a score sheet) and that the players must submit a copy (again indicating that they have a right to a copy.)
This rule needs better wording. (I’m surprised in hindsight that a rulebook author who I thought was an IP attorney didn’t comment on this.)
It probably just needs to say “The sponsoring organization has an ownership right to a copy of the scoresheet of each player in each game of a tournament.”
Does it state anywhere in the rulebook that by entering a US Chess tournament (paying the entry fee) that the players agree to play by the rules of the current version of the US Chess Rulebook, as possibly amended from time to time with such amendments available from US Chess and the US Chess website? In order to legally enforce the ownership right, something like that is probably necessary.
The rule is fine as written considering what it is often needed for. During a dispute it gives the organizer the right to have the TD review the scoresheets, even if in a scorebook, without having a player say that scoresheets are the players’ private property and thus the TD cannot look at that player’s scoresheet (I’ve had to refer to 15G on occasion when needing to verify something on a player’s scoresheet).
For those tournaments where the organizer plans to publish the games, the rule goes on to address the situation of an organizer requiring a copy of the scoresheet after the game by stating that such a requirements needs to have duplicate scoresheets (such as carbonless carbon copies) provided. The National Open is one such tournament and those games end up in an electronic format.
I thought that Tim was citing the rule to explicitly show that the organizers do NOT have sole ownership and trying to bring up a “sole ownership” argument was an irrelevant red herring.
Rule 1B says “USCF play shall be governed by these rules of chess and by all USCF procedures and policies”. …(…FIDE) rules shall not be used unless specifically announced in advance.
That states that players in a US Chess tournament are governed by those rules, though I’m sure that some people will find a tortuous way of parsing things to say that the rule really says the opposite of what it says.