History of Reversi through documentation

This is a translation of this article, thanks to the English Federation and Jorge.

Recently, the British group Othello, someone wondered how the person who called Lewis Waterman allegedly copied the idea from his reversi.

There were a couple of satisfactory responses confirming that name was John W. Mollett:
"Peter Michaelsen, who did a remarkable work on Othello History, lists him as John W. Mollett."
"I've a copy of the book "The Cyclopaedia of card and table games" of professor Hoffmann (London, 1891) where he is referred as John W. Mollett."

And there was another curious, and that led us to more information:
"Please follow that link"
http://www.google.fr/books?id=xi

The message continued, but it's better to continue with the link, which leads to a small catch Google in a book titled with the suggestive name: "The Law Times Reports: Containing All the Cases Argued and Determined in the" (the title, too long, below).

It seems that for some reason, rights and those stories, Google only gives pieces of the book, and what can be read is:

The defendant in Nov. 1886 brought ont a similar game under the name of " Annex ; " and in Feb. 1888 he added to that word on his labels the words, "a game of Reverses," the last word being printed in large letters.

The defendant adduced evidence to show that both his and the plaintiff’s game were a cheaper form of a game invented by Mr. Mollett, and sold since 1876 by the defendant, under the name "Annexation," and alleged that he used the words "a game of reverses" merely to indicate the nature of the game.

The case of which they are talking is a certain Ayres v. Waterman. This Ayres had this to sell the Mollett's game since 1876 (Annexation). However, in November 1886, began to sell it as Annex, and in February 1888 he added the words "a game of Reverses." As Waterman Reversi had registered the name in 1887, we have this information: Waterman wanted not use anything like that, as it was "Reverses."

It turns out that Waterman won the case, and Ayres had to withdraw that word. But then appealed, and this time Ayres was given the reason, in addition to determining that would not have accepted the registration of the word "Reversi" (mostly by being descriptive of the game). So we can use "reversi" lowercase and not with initial capitalization.

Obviously with the information pasted up in English does not follow that much. For one thing, Google gives more chips if you searched different. But on the other, trying to get all the information thus must be well bored, so we must think in another way.

The book to which we refer was published in 1948, but Google still does not dare to leave on full network (I don' know how many years must pass). But a couple of searches that I saw that there was another, "The Weekly Reporter," which also had similar information, but I am afraid only of the appeal. Also, "The Canada Law Journal" was a summary of all, which hit below (if bored, skip two paragraphs later):

TRADE MARK—FANCY WORD.

In Waterman v. Ayres, 39 Chy. D. 29, the plaintiff had registered the word "Reversi" as a trade mark for a game somewhat similar to draughts. The word was the name of a game of cards popular in France in the sixteenth century. In the rules of the plaintiff's game the word "reverse" frequently occurred, and the game depended on the players reversing each other's counters.

The defendant brought out a similar game under the name of "Annex," and on the labels of the boxes in which he sold it were the words "a game of reverses." This action was brought to restrain the infringement of the plaintiffs trade mark, and the defendant applied to remove the trade mark from the register. Kay, J., refused the application of the defendant, and granted the plaintiff an injunction to restrain the defendant from using the word "reverses" or any colourable imitation of the word "Reversi." But on appeal his decision on both points was reversed. The Court of Appeal (Cotton, Fry and Lopes, L.JJ.) holding that as the word "Reversi" would suggest to an ordinary Englishman that the game had something to do with reversing, it was not a word which obviously could not have any reference to the character of the article, and was, therefore, not a " fancy word " which could properly be registered as a trade mark. And further, that as defendant's use of the words "a game of reverses" was a fair description of the nature of the game, and not indicative of any design on the part of the defendant to pass off his goods as those of the plaintiff, an injunction ought not to have been granted.

The problem both with Canada and with the Weekly is that despite being published much earlier, Google also gives the full, at least in Spain. However, in the United States, and perhaps in some other country, it can be seen that these two completely. So there are at least 3 options to see these books: (a) ask a United States citizen, (b) travel to the United States, (c) impersonate an American.

Obviously I chose the (c), and then I got the text above. The problem with the Weekly is that the recognition of the text is bad and I only downloaded in pictures. Here it is:

Http://jorgebandres.googlepages.com/weeklyr.zip

Obviously, if someone can provide more information, which we write.

Thanks Jorge!!!

Here are the images of the books found by Jorge:

One other Google search: