Here is a good resource if anyone is interested in looking up random chess equipment

Hi everybody, I was looking at the different chess pieces displayed in this sub forum and I began wondering whether Staunton style chess pieces are in any way patented. I know they were at the time of their initial introductions. 

While I could not find anything about the patent status for Staunton/Cooke chessmen, I realized I could give you guys a cool resource where you can find all sorts of chess related stuff.

Go here http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html

It is a link to the search page of USPTO website. It is the official website and search tool for looking up thousands of patents and it is hosted by the US govt for patenting purposes. As you can see the site is poorly designed and looks like it is 10 years behind the internet. 

You can see two fields where you can enter key words. That is the simplest way to find something without learning all sorts of search commands. If you search for "chess" or "chess set" you may see results that are too numerous and often not relevant to chess at all. But if you carefully read the descriptions or enter other keywords you'll find chess designs, chess like games, and other equipment that was at some point patented. Some of the items are plain ridiculous. Someone patented a set in the 70s which is just a plain ugly realistic figurine set that everyone hates.