History of the board game Monopoly reversed. The case was then appealed by General Mills/Parker Brothers to the United States Supreme Court, which decided not to hear the case in February 1983, and denied a petition for rehearing in April. This allowed the appeals court's decision to stand and further allowed Anspach to resume publication of his game. With the trademark nullified, the name "Monopoly" entered the public domain, where the naming of games was concerned, and a profusion of non-Parker-Brothers variants were published. Parker Brothers and other firms lobbied the United States Congress and obtained a revision of the trademark laws. The case was finally
History of the board game Monopoly Brothers worldwide rights and releasing Darrow from legal costs that would be incurred in defending the origin of the game. In December 1935, Parker Brothers sent a copy of the game to Victor Watson, Sr. of Waddington Games. Watson and his son Norman tried the game over a weekend, and liked it so much that Waddington took the (then extraordinary) step of making a transatlantic "trunk call" to Parker Brothers, the first such call made or received by either company. This impressed Parker Brothers sufficiently that Waddington was granted licensing rights for Europe and the then-British Commonwealth, excluding Canada. Waddingtons