| Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method -> Monitor Keywords |
|
|
  Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic methodRelated Patent Categories: Amusement Devices: Games, Including Means For Processing Electronic Data (e.g., Computer/video Game, Etc.), In A Game Requiring Strategy Or Problem Solving By A Participant (e.g., Problem Eliciting Response, Puzzle, Etc.)Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060040719, Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application claims priority benefit of U.S. provisional patent application No. 60/603,035 filed on Aug. 20, 2004. FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present disclosure relates to a fantasy sports league game in which participants act as "coaches" or "owners" to form their own clubs or teams from active league professional sports and in which participant coaches are rewarded based upon the actual performance of the players on their teams in real life games. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to the player selection aspect of fielding a fantasy sports team. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Fantasy sports league games are well known. Generally, in such games, participants select, or "draft" currently active real-life athletes to form fantasy teams. A participant's success or failure in the game corresponds to the performance of the players in real-life games. Such games are often referred to as "rotisserie leagues." Owners of such fantasy teams often compete head to head against each of the other teams in the league, the winner being determined by which team's players performed better the previous week. [0004] Instantaneous communications technology allows people to participate in fantasy games in real time. Various communications networks including the Internet, intranets, wide area networks, and the like can be used for "live drafting." Live drafting describes the situation whereby multiple participants in a league are able to select players from a fantasy league player pool and view player selections in real-time. [0005] Pre-ranking and player selection queues are known. They exist in nearly every drafting tool. Player selection queues have typically been limited to sorting of players by a ranked list developed by the order of preference of the fantasy participant. The ranked list sets the order of players drafted, and the next available player is selected, regardless of how well that player meets the needs of the drafting team. [0006] One example of a known fantasy pre-ranking and player selection queue is provided at www.antsports.com, which offers a very limited form of predraft player selection. Participants rank players in a pre-draft list before the draft, and also have the ability to re-rank players for each individual round of a draft. However, the participant has to include the same player in each modified predraft list for all subsequent rounds. For instance, when drafting for football players, adding a kicker to the 10th round predraft list, but not on a subsequent lists for a subsequent round, would result in the kicker only being automatically selected in the 10th round. Generally, fantasy drafts can last for several hours, and for many rounds, and it can be quite tedious to re-rank players the way Antsports requires it to be done. It would be desirable to provide pre-draft player selection criteria that reduced the amount of time needed to create and monitor player lists. [0007] Moreover, using ranked lists can be disadvantageous for several additional reasons. These include inadvertently selecting a player earlier than desired or drafting too many players at the same positions, for example, in a football fantasy draft, drafting three kickers. It would be desirable to have a pre-selection tool that is superior to ranked lists to account for these disadvantages. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0008] In accordance with a first aspect, a method of selecting players for a fantasy sports league team before and during a fantasy sports league draft comprises the steps of selecting a player, assigning a logic rule to the player, the logic rule defining at least one condition that governs if and when the player will be drafted during the fantasy sports league draft, and repeating the steps of selecting a player and assigning a logic rule to the player for additional players. In accordance with another aspect, a computer processor and a computer program, when used in combination with a general purpose computer, operate that computer to provide the method described above. [0009] From the foregoing disclosure and the following more detailed description of various preferred embodiments it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention provides a significant advance in the technology and art of player selection in fantasy sports leagues. Particularly significant in this regard is the potential the invention affords for providing an efficient and flexible method of selecting players for fantasy teams. Additional features and advantages of various preferred embodiments will be better understood in view of the detailed description provided below. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0010] FIG. 1 is a simplified flow diagram of a method of defining a predraft list and applying predraft logic intended for use in selecting players for a fantasy sports team in accordance with a preferred embodiment. [0011] FIG. 2 is a screenshot of an interface for building a predraft list and assigning predraft logic for a fantasy sports draft in accordance with the preferred embodiment of FIG. 1. [0012] FIG. 3 is a simplified flow diagram of a method of editing a pre-draft list with player logic. [0013] FIG. 4 is a simplified flow diagram of a method of removing a logic rule from a player in a pre-draft list. [0014] FIG. 5 is a simplified flow diagram of a method of editing pre-draft logic during a fantasy sports league draft. [0015] FIG. 6 is a simplified diagrammatic view of a system for providing pre-draft logic to a fantasy sport league draft. [0016] FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of a method of performing a draft using pre-draft logic rules. [0017] FIG. 8 is a screenshot of an interface for conducting a fantasy sports draft. [0018] FIG. 9 is the screenshot of FIG. 8 with a floating draft interface activated. [0019] It should be understood that the appended drawings are not necessarily to scale, presenting a somewhat simplified representation of various preferred features illustrative of the basic principles of the invention. The specific design features of the method of selecting players for fantasy teams as disclosed here will be determined in part by the particular intended application and use environment. Certain features of the illustrated embodiments have been enlarged or distorted relative to others for visualization and clear understanding. In particular, thin features may be thickened, for example, for clarity of illustration. All references to direction and position, unless otherwise indicated, refer to the orientation illustrated in the drawings. Continue reading about Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method... Full patent description for Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Audio-visual games and game computer programs embodying interactive speech recognition and methods related thereto Next Patent Application: Integrated game system, method, and device Industry Class: Amusement devices: games ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method patent info. IP-related news and info Results in 1.40435 seconds Other interesting Feshpatents.com categories: Accenture , Agouron Pharmaceuticals , Amgen , AT&T , Bausch & Lomb , Callaway Golf |
||
