In 1895, visionary Rochester, New York, attorney George B. Selden was granted a patent for a "road-carriage" that he had designed but not built. In anticipation of a burgeoning American auto industry, Selden had filed a series of amendments to his application, delaying the process for sixteen years in order to stretch his claim out as long as possible. As a result, the Selden patent covered all gasoline-powered vehicles designed since 1879 and manufactured, sold, or used in the United States during a seventeen-year period ending in 1912. Selden's ally, the Association of Licensed...