Ralph Anspach
| Ralph Anspach | |||||||||||
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| Residence | Redwood City, California | ||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Chicago | ||||||||||
| Occupation | college professor (retired) | ||||||||||
| Employer | San Francisco State University | ||||||||||
| Known for | Monopoly legal fight | ||||||||||
| Notable work |
Anti-Monopoly game The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle | ||||||||||
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Ralph Anspach (born 1926) is an American retired economics professor from San Francisco State University. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago, and fought with the Mahal in 1948 in support of the independence of Israel. He is best known, though, for creating the game Anti-Monopoly, and the legal battles that followed.
Life
Ralph Anspach was born in 1926. Anspach grew up in Germany where he belong to Zionist youth groups.[1]
In 1938, he escaped Germany for the US. Anspach was enlisted in the US Army serving from 1945 to 1946 in an artillery observation unit based in the Philippines.[1]
He attended University of Chicago. During college, he heard about concentration camp survivors' problem being shuttled about and not being allow into Palestine. Thus he volunteer, under the cover of being agricultural laborers, to fight in Israel's War of Independence on Israel's side as a part of the Mahal, foreign volunteers. Anspach served it an anti-tank unit.[1]
Amspach created the Anti-Monopoly game which resulted in a 1974 trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Parker Brothers. In 1979, the parties reached a settlement allowing Anspach to continue marketing Anti-Monopoly.[2] In a 1983 US Supreme Court case, Anspach won the "Anti-Monopoly" and the suffix "-opoly" trademark rights from Parker Brothers. He then wrote a book about the true history of monopoly and his legal fight over monopoly, The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle.[3]
Work
- games[3]
- Anti-Monopoly
- Original-opoly
- The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle[3]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 Katz, Leslie (June 5, 1998). "U.S. veterans of '48 war recall their Zionist passion". Jewish News Weekly of Northern California. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
- ↑ Pilon, Mary (October 20, 2009). "How a Fight Over a Board Game Monopolized an Economist's Life". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 3, 2011.
- 1 2 3 Collins, Doug (Nov/Dec 1998). "Go to Court, Go Directly to Court". Washington Free Press (36). Retrieved November 3, 2016. Check date values in:
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External links
- Notes Compiled by Ralph Anspach at the Wayback Machine (archived February 27, 2008) (PDF)
- Anti-Monopoly Website
- Background to Anti-Monopoly at the Wayback Machine (archived January 15, 2013) Discover Games