The
Wall Street Journal used to regularly run fascinating stories like this morning's tale of Ralph Anspach, who battled Hasbro for decades over its allegations that a board game he
invented, Anti-Monopoly, infringed on its patent. Mary Pilon reports that the retired 83-year-old economics professor at San Francisco State University claims that the board game's official
"legend," as
Hasbro calls it, "is a corporate fairy tale."
To wit, Anspach maintains
that the game's developer, Charles B. Darrow, actually rejiggered "The Landlord's Game," which was patented in 1904 by a Quaker named Elizabeth Magie who wanted to show the downsides
of capitalism. It then purportedly became a widely played folk game.
Pilon weaves the tale of Anspach's guerilla-style ambushes of Monopoly championships 30 years ago --
one of them in cahoots with billionaire Jay Walker, who went on to found Priceline -- as well as legal battles that took him all the way to the Supreme Court.
In the end,
Anspach and Hasbro reached a settlement and he licenses the Monopoly name. But as part of the deal, Anspach retains the right to tell his story about the origins of the game. "That is a principle
which is not for sale for me," he says.
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Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »