History of the board game Monopoly game's history, and argued that the copyrights and trademarks held by Parker Brothers should be nullified, as the game came out of the public domain. Among other things, Anspach discovered the empty 1933 Charles B. Darrow file at the United States Copyright Office, testimony from the "Inflation" game case that was settled out of court, and letters from Knapp Electric challenging Parker Brothers over "Monopoly". As the case went to trial in November 1976, Anspach produced testimony by many involved with the early development of the game, including Catherine and Willard Allphin, Dorothea Raiford and Charles Todd. Willard Allphin attempted
History of the board game Monopoly sole inventor of the game, but sought out an affidavit by Darrow to repeat his statements to the contrary, and thus bolster their claim to the game. Parker Brothers subsequently decided to buy out Magie's 1924 patent and the copyrights of other commercial variants of the game to claim that it had legitimate undisputed rights to the game. Robert Barton, president of Parker Brothers, bought the rights to "Finance" from Knapp Electric later in 1935. "Finance" would be redeveloped, updated, and continued to be sold by Parker Brothers into the 1970s. Other board games based on a similar principle, such