Battleship (game) Battleship (game) Battleship (also Battleships or Sea Battle) is a guessing game for two players. It is played on ruled grids (paper or board) on which each players fleet of ships (including battleships) are marked. The locations of the fleets are concealed from the other player. Players alternate turns calling "shots" at the other player's ships, and the objective of the game is to destroy the opposing player's fleet. "Battleship" is known worldwide as a pencil and paper game which dates from World War I. It was published by various companies as a pad-and-pencil game in the 1930s, and was
Rubber-Tip Pencil Co. v. Howard presumed. In such a case it is vain to talk about the small amount of ingenuity shown or to say that the arrangement and application are so simple and obvious that anybody could see them. Writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Morrison Waite began by ascertaining what the claimed invention was. It was not for the external form of the device described. Rather: [I]t is very evident that the essential element of the invention as understood by the patentee was the facility provided for attaching the [rubber] head to the pencil. The prominent idea in the mind of the