Posted By:
PaulThere's one more Allegheny card posted on another thread -- the Frank Selee, posted on the BB Card Hall of Fame thread. Happily, it is mine.
To answer Max's question, it is unlikely that anyone would have tried to patent this game. The backs of the cards state that they were "registered" on April 5, 1904. "Registered" usually refers to a trademark. The Allegheny company probably registered the name "Allegheny" as its trademark, meaning that no one else could use the name Allegheny on baseball card games. (They would have to use different names, like Fan Craze).
The Patent Office handles trademarks as well as patents. So it is possible that the Allegheny company sent a set of these cards to the Patent Office as part of the process of registering their trademark. In order to register a trademark, the Patent Office requires you to send in samples of your product featuring your trademark. But I don't think they sent in the exact set that was part of the Copeland collection (the cards pictured on this website). These cards had to be printed after the trademark registration process was complete. They say right on them that they were registered on April 5, 1904. So the trademark was registered before this set was printed. I know of no reason why anyone would have sent the set to the Patent Office after the trademark was registered.