The Wright brothers patent war
The Wright brothers were two Americans who are widely credited[1][2][3] with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903.
In 1906 the Wrights received a patent for their method of flight control and fiercely defended it in the years afterward, suing foreign and domestic aviators and companies, especially Glenn Curtiss, in an attempt to collect licensing fees. The legal threat suppressed development of the U.S. aviation industry. Letters Wilbur Wright wrote to Octave Chanute in January 1910 offer a glimpse into the Wrights' proprietary feeling about their work: "It is not disputed that every person who is using this system today owes it to us and to us alone. The French aviators freely admit it."[4] In another letter Wilbur said: "It is our view that morally the world owes its almost universal use of our system of lateral control entirely to us. It is also our opinion that legally it owes it to us."[5]
After World War I began, the federal government pressured the U.S. aviation industry to form an organization that allowed sharing of aviation patents.
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[edit] The patent
During their experiments of 1902 the Wrights succeeded in controlling their glider in all three axes of flight: pitch, roll and yaw. Their breakthrough discovery was the simultaneous use of roll control (with wing-warping) and yaw control (with a rear rudder). A forward elevator controlled pitch. In March 1903 they applied for a patent on their method of control. The application, which they wrote themselves, was rejected. In early 1904, they hired Ohio patent attorney Henry Toulmin, and on May 22, 1906, they were granted U.S. Patent 821393[6] for a "Flying Machine".
The patent's importance lies in its claim of a new and useful method of controlling a flying machine, powered or not. The technique of wing-warping is described, but the patent explicitly states that other methods instead of wing-warping could be used for adjusting the outer portions of a machine's wings to different angles on the right and left sides to achieve lateral (roll) control.
The concept of lateral control was basic to all aircraft designs; without it they could not be easily or safely controlled in flight.[7]
The broad protection intended by this patent succeeded when the Wrights won patent infringement lawsuits against Glenn Curtiss and other early aviators who devised ailerons to emulate lateral control described in the patent and demonstrated by the Wrights in their 1908 public flights. U.S. courts decided that ailerons were also covered by the patent.
[edit] Patent war
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| Orville Wright | Wilbur Wright | Glenn Curtiss |
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In 1908, the brothers warned Glenn Curtiss not to infringe their patent by profiting from flying or selling aircraft that used ailerons. Curtiss refused to pay license fees to the Wrights and sold an airplane to the Aeronautic Society of New York in 1909. The Wrights filed a lawsuit, beginning a years-long legal conflict. They also sued foreign aviators who flew at U.S. exhibitions, including the leading French aviator Louis Paulhan. The Curtiss people derisively suggested that if someone jumped in the air and waved his arms, the Wrights would sue. The brothers' licensed European companies, which owned foreign patents the Wrights had received, sued manufacturers in their countries. The European lawsuits were only partly successful. Despite a pro-Wright ruling in France, legal maneuvering dragged on until the patent expired in 1917. A German court ruled the patent not valid due to prior disclosure in speeches by Wilbur Wright in 1901 and Octave Chanute in 1903. In the U.S. the Wrights made an agreement with the Aero Club of America to license airshows which the Club approved, freeing participating pilots from a legal threat. Promoters of approved shows paid fees to the Wrights.[8] The Wright brothers won their initial case against Curtiss in February 1913, but the decision was appealed.
The brothers wrote to Samuel F Cody in the UK, making a claim that he had infringed their patents but Cody stated that he had used wing-warping on his man-carrying kite]s before their flights.[9]
The Wrights' preoccupation with the legal issue hindered their development of new aircraft designs, and by 1911 Wright aircraft were inferior to those made by other firms in Europe.[10] Indeed, aviation development in the US was suppressed to such an extent that when the U.S. entered World War I no acceptable American-designed aircraft were available, and the U.S. forces were compelled to use French machines.
In January 1914, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in favor of the Wrights against the Curtiss company, which continued to avoid penalties through legal tactics.
[edit] The patent pool solution
In 1917, the two major patent holders, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I. The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization (in other terms a Patent pool), the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association.[11][12][13]
All aircraft manufacturers were required to join the association, and each member was required to pay a comparatively small blanket fee (for the use of aviation patents) for each airplane manufactured,[11] of that the major part would go to the Wright-Martin and Curtiss companies, until their respective patents expire.[7][14] This arrangement was designed to last only for the duration of the war, but in 1918, the litigation was never renewed. By this time, Wilbur had died (in May 1912) and Orville had sold his interest in the Wright Company to a group of New York financiers (in October 1915) and retired from the business. The "patent war" had come to an end.
[edit] Aftermath
The lawsuits damaged the public image of the Wright brothers, who were generally regarded before this as heroes. Critics said the brothers actions may have retarded the development of aviation,[10][15] and compared their actions unfavorably to European inventors, who worked more openly.
The Manufacturers Aircraft Association was an early example of a government-enforced Patent pool. It has been used as an example in recent cases, such as dealing with HIV antiretroviral drug patents to give access to otherwise expensive treatments in Africa.[16][17]
[edit] See also
- Selden patent, another vehicular technology patent lawsuit of the same time period
[edit] References
- ^ "The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age". National Air and Space Museum. http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/. Retrieved 2011-02-12.
- ^ Johnson, Mary Ann (2001-09-28). "Following the Footsteps of the Wright Brothers: Their Sites and Stories Symposium Papers". Wright State University. http://www.libraries.wright.edu/special/symposium/Johnson.html. Retrieved 2011-02-12.
- ^ "Flying through the ages". BBC. 1999-03-19. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/11/98/great_balloon_challenge/299568.stm. Retrieved 2011-02-12.
- ^ Wilbur Wright (1910-01-29). "Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute, Dayton, January 29, 1910". http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/inventors/i/Wrights/library/Chanute_Wright_correspond/1910/Jan29-1910.html. Retrieved 2011-02-12. "It is not disputed that every person who is using this system today owes it to us and to us alone. The French aviators freely admit it"
- ^ Wilbur Wright (1910-01-20). "Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute, Dayton, January 20, 1910". http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/inventors/i/Wrights/library/Chanute_Wright_correspond/1910/Jan20-1910.html. Retrieved 2011-02-12. "It is our view that morally the world owes its almost universal use of our system of lateral control entirely to us. It is also our opinion that legally it owes it to us"
- ^ "FLYING-MACHINE". 1903-03-29. http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT821393&id=h5NWAAAAEBAJ&dq=821,393. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
- ^ a b "Glenn Curtiss and the Wright Patent Battles". centennialofflight.gov. http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Patent_Battles/WR12.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "The suit finally ended with the advent of World War I when the aircraft manufacturers established the Manufacturers Aircraft Association to coordinate wartime aircraft manufacturing in the United States and formed a patent pool with the approval of the U.S. government. All patent litigation ceased automatically. Royalties were reduced to one percent and free exchange of inventions and ideas took place among all the airframe builders."
- ^ "Amateurs May Use Wright Patents.". daytonhistorybooks.citymax.com. http://www.daytonhistorybooks.citymax.com/page/page/2599316.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
- ^ G. A. Broomfield (16 May 1958), "S F Cody - A Personal Reminiscence", Flight: 691, http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1958/1958%20-%200675.html
- ^ a b Boyne, Walter J.. "THE WRIGHT BROTHERS: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN". wingsoverkansas.com. http://www.wingsoverkansas.com/boyne/article.asp?id=268. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "The Wrights further restricted aviation progress in the United States by sticking doggedly to their basic design, despite the obvious advances being made in Europe. Improvements were made to the 1910 Model B, which had the elevator in the rear, wheels in place of skids, and did not require the tower-catapult for takeoff. The later Model C proved to be a man-killer; seven were purchased by the Army and five crashed, killing five men."
- ^ a b "Patent thickets and the Wright Brothers". ipbiz.blogspot.com. 2006-07-01. http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2006/07/patent-thickets-and-wright-brothers.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "In 1917, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (The Honorable Franklin D. Roosevelt), an aircraft patent pool was privately formed encompassing almost all aircraft manufacturers in the United States. The creation of the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association was crucial to the U.S. government because the two major patent holders, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of any new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I."
- ^ "The Wright Brothers, Patents, and Technological Innovation". buckeyeinstitute.org. http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/article/197. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "This unusual arrangement could have been interpreted as a violation of antitrust law, but fortunately it was not. It served a clear economic purpose: preventing the holder of a single patent on a critical component from holding up creation of an entire aircraft. Practically, the pool had no effect on either market structure or technological advances. Speed, safety, and reliability of US made airplanes improved steadily over the years the pool existed (up to 1975). Over that time several firms held large shares of the commercial aircraft market: Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed, Convair, and Martin, but no one of them dominated it for very long."
- ^ "THE CROSS-LICENSING AGREEMENT". history.nasa.gov. http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4103/ch2.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
- ^ "End Patent Wars of Aircraft Makers". The New York Times. 1917-08-07. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9906E2D8133AE433A25754C0A96E9C946696D6CF. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "New Organization Is Formed, Under War Pressure, to Interchange Patents. BIG ROYALTIES TO BE PAID: Wright and Curtiss Interests Each to Receive Ultimately $2,000,000 – Increased Production Predicted. Payment of Royalties."
- ^ "Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company: A Virtual Museum of Pioneer Aviation". publichistory.org. 2004-01-13. http://www.publichistory.org/reviews/View_Review.asp?DBID=102. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "basically, after 1903, after the Kitty Hawk flight, the Wright brothers never again made any real, significant scientific contribution to the field of aeronautics(...)some “scholars” have suggested that the Wrights’ insistence in enforcing the patents may have retarded the development of aviation(...)"
- ^ "Patent Pools, Access to HIV treatments in Africa". essentialdrugs.org. 2002-03-17. http://www.essentialdrugs.org/edrug/archive/200203/msg00040.php. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "Dr. Kaplan also explained that in the past the government has effectively used a patent pool to give a group compulsory license on a large number of patents, using in particular the 1917 example involving aircraft patents, a pool created at the advice of then Assistant Secretary of the Navy FDR, to overcome the blocking patents held by the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company. It would be interesting to think about an HIV patent pool being created in South Africa, for example, to permit access into the market for products that treat HIV, or to create a US R&D patent pool that all recipients of US NIH funds could be required to join. Here are some sections from that White Paper"
- ^ "Non-Voluntary Patent Pool: The Key to Affordable Antiretrovirals?". thebody.com. 2002-07-08. http://www.thebody.com/content/art16441.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "In my view, such a move would have a significant negative effect on the stock market and the drive for innovation that has produced so many antiretroviral drugs so quickly. However, the U.S. government clearly needs to exert more leadership and contribute considerably more funds to the worldwide AIDS struggle. So, in the meantime, a debate about non-voluntary patent pools and other approaches is called for."
[edit] External links
- U.S. Patent 821,393 — Flying machine — O. & W. Wright
- U.S. Patent 821,393 — for those who do not have USPTO graphics plugin
