Whether you live on Baltic Ave. or Boardwalk, this 1935 Monopoly Game patent is a perfect decoration for your office, game room, and home. It is finished with a distressed vintage effect bringing character and atmosphere.

"A board game apparatus including, in combination, a board having marked spaces or areas, constituting a path or course extending about the said board, said spaces or areas having, respectively, designations for real estate locations; dice or the like to determine the extent of the players' movements along said path or course; a set of miniature buildings adapted when acquired by players to be placed on said real estate locations: and a set of tokens or symbols shaped in representation of diversified objects, and constituting the playing pieces."--Charles B. Darrow. Filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office August 31, 1935.

The patent act of 1790 established the rules for submitting a patent application. Each application had to be submitted with specifications, a patent drawing, and if possible a model of the invention. Eventually, models were no longer required.

The National Archives holds nearly three million patent case files from 1836-1956.