<<
Therefore, it's possible for someone to come up with a novel
concept.>>
Novelty of concepts is not a requirement for PI. That's reading into the license.
It can be argued that ownership is a requirement for PI designation, but we are given no standards by which ownership is made manifest.
<<
Has any d20 publisher claimed a concept as defendable PI? Not that I>
know of>
About 5 vendors, 3 of them pretty large, have PI'd their rules entirely. Not just the verbatim _expression_ of the rules, but entire rules sections and concepts, start to finish.
Things like "Power Points" (read "character building points"), "hero points", etc. have all been PI'd.
The default status of rules is that they are automatically OGC unless they embody PI. The only options for PI'ing a rule start to finish is to PI its associated concepts, language, and formatting. That locks it down _if_ the person has the appropriate authority to make each of those PI declarations.
I think _that_ is the question: ownership, and how it's defined. I think people claiming that you can't PI some of this stuff under any circumstances is tantamount to saying that there are types of PI which the license lists as protectable, but which aren't.
So, we're back to the questions from several weeks ago: how do you define ownership for things which aren't owned under traditional trademark and copyright law?
Once that question is answered unambiguously, then the license becomes much easier to understand.
Lee
