Which BJ count systems are patented?

Can BJ count systems like Hi-Lo be patented? If so, does it affect only software products and books or players also.

Are books and software allowed to publish the indices?
Can they publish the actual count values assigned to the cards?
Can players use the count system in a casino? How would anyone know?

Anything published about a system, however, is automatically copyrighted (but subject to "fair use").

You can patent the manner in which a system is presented, but not the actual data itself, which being the result of a mathematical process is technically "known" to all, it would be like trying to patent 2+2=4.
Peter Griffin actually discovered most of the known commercial count systems before they were presented in later texts by writers more commonly associated with those systems, who developed the systems with full indices.

This incident happened to me some time ago ( I don`t wanna specify time and location). I was playing heads up against a very muscular dealer. He was leaning against the table and "incidently" bending cards, not attempting to straighten them out ( I noticed only later those were specific ones- 3,4 5 and 6). What`s more, he wasn`t pulling, but literally tearing the cards forcibly out of shoe. Now what I`m trying to say is this: say most of the small cards are bent on one side. He picks `em up in a manner that bents are on one side of the discard tray and keeps them all on one side throughout the shuffle. In a new shoe, he is holding his left hand on the "shoe mouth", touching cards he knows what is likely to come and deals acordingly. This may sound paranoid but in three shoes playing heads up, I won only six hands. I was being dealt stiff after stiff, dealer was allways pat and when he was showing 4,5 or 6, he had small one under. ALLWAYS. He didn`t bust one single time. It`s possible that I wore out my welcome here (as I took this casino for 40K in 5 days I was staying there, only to dropp 15K of it back in these three shoes). I`ve read Zender`s book on cheating in BJ so I know what gaffed shoe looks like. This one wasn`t. Does anyone know if I can take legal action against this case if this happens again? It will be hard to prove anything because the cards aren`t marked, just bent. Thanks for any ideas.

The dealing hand must always cover the shoe and the next card to come. The reason for this is because 20 years ago you could apparently tell the difference between a face card and a number card based on the printing on the back (Maybe face cards were printed on a different machine because of the complex pictures, but Im too young to know about that). The rule of covering the shoe just stuck as a good dealer habit, also because of marked cards or whatever reason. As far as the dealer bending the 3456 only, are you sure he wasn't bending other cards and you just didn't really admit to yourself to notice? It is very easy to think that something is wrong when you are losing. From a shoe, you would definately notice if someone was dealing seconds especially if you suspect it and watched for it. It's almost impossible to push a card far enough up to get a good grip on the second card, especially without making a mistake once in a while, dealing somewhat quickly too, and pulling out 2 cards at the same time.

If Peter Griffin discovered most of the commercial count systems, why are they named after other people!

Griffin didn't name them. Epstein named them "Griffin 1, Griffin 2..." on his behalf. Then, each of the systems was slowly renamed by specific authors.
Revere, Thorp, and some other individuals such as Dubner, are exempt from this as they were Griffin's antecdents.