George Baldwin Selden was a brilliant New York patent attorney, but his passion was inventing. George only became an attorney at the insistence of his father, Henry Selden, a prominent attorney who defended Susan B. Anthony in her 1873 trial for voting as a woman. It was around that time that inventors began looking for a way to replace horses as transportation. Horses required constant care and horse manure was a constant sanitation problem. George designed a “gasoline and oil type” automobile and submitted his patent request on May 8, 1879. For George, a patent attorney, the process to attain a patent was almost second nature, but George intentionally delayed the finalizing of his patent. George’s strategy was to stall the patent process until interest in automobiles was peaking. After 16 years of intentional delays, on November 5, 1895, George was granted patent No. 549,160 for “a road vehicle, the motor being a liquid hydrocarbon gas engine of the compression type.”
George’s plan worked well. His patent granted him the exclusive right to manufacture, sell, and use gasoline powered automobiles for 17 years. It was considered “the pioneer invention” in the automobile industry. In 1899, George transferred rights to his patent to the Electric Vehicle Company in exchange for compensation which included future royalties. In another clever move, George made a huge profit and would continue earning royalties while the task of collecting royalties was done by the Electric Vehicle Company.
In 1903, thirty-two members of the Manufacturer’s Mutual Association formed the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM) and leased the right to manufacture and sell gasoline powered automobiles. Lessees eventually included manufacturers such as Buick, Cadillac, Hudson, Packard, Pierce Arrow, and Studebaker. Notice that Ford was not included in the list. Henry Ford had applied for a license through the ALAM, but his application was rejected.
A large group of independent manufacturers refused to pay royalties on the Selden patent and Henry Ford joined them. At one point, Henry tried to lure the ALAM into court to have the patent thrown out because of its “monopolistic control and exploitation by the automobile trust.” In a bold move, Henry Ford offered the ALAM $1,000 if they would file suit against him. He got his wish in October 1903 when the ALAM filed suit against the Ford Motor Co. and C.A. Durer & Company for manufacturing automobiles, the O.J. Gude Company for advertising their cars, and John Wanamaker, an owner of a Ford car.
The court case dragged on for years and the Selden patent was upheld until January 9, 1911, when the United States Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the lower court and concluded that Selden’s patent was limited to a particular type of engine, which Ford’s automobiles did not use. George and the ALAM said they would take the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court if they had to but ultimately decided against it because the exclusive rights provided by the patent were set to expire in September of the same year.
George B. Selden’s plan was brilliant. His plan is even more impressive when you learn that at the time he received the patent which granted him control over the automobile industry, he had never built a single car.
Sources:
1. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, November 12, 1900, p.12.
2. The Flint Journal, October 24, 1903, p.1.
3. The Union and Advertiser (Rochester, New York), September 16, 1909, p.9.
4. The Rochester Herald, January 10, 1911, p.1.
5. “Selden Automobile Patent Model, 1879,” National Museum of American History, accessed October 25, 2026, https://americanhistory.si.
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