Pocket Cube court affirmed the judgment that Rubik's 2×2×2 Pocket Cube infringed Nichols's patent, but overturned the judgment on Rubik's 3×3×3 Cube. Any permutation of the eight corners is possible (8! positions), and seven of them can be independently rotated (3 positions). There is nothing identifying the orientation of the cube in space, reducing the positions by a factor of 24. This is because all 24 possible positions and orientations of the first corner are equivalent due to the lack of fixed centers. This factor does not appear when calculating the permutations of N×N×N cubes where N is odd, since those puzzles
Pocket Cube Pocket Cube The Pocket Cube (also known as the Mini Cube) is the 2×2×2 equivalent of a Rubik's Cube. The cube consists of 8 pieces, all corners. In March 1970, Larry D. Nichols invented a 2×2×2 "Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups" and filed a Canadian patent application for it. Nichols's cube was held together with magnets. Nichols was granted on April 11, 1972, two years before Rubik invented his Cube. Nichols assigned his patent to his employer Moleculon Research Corp., which sued Ideal in 1982. In 1984, Ideal lost the patent infringement suit and appealed. In 1986, the appeals