24 May 09
4 edits
Originally posted by FMFA fairly famous case of patent warring that both delayed and stimulated innovation, and that preoccupied the patent holders to their own detriment, such that they lost all their industry advantage, leaving them to slowly fade away from prominence and influence after having had the whole world at their feet at one time, was the futile attempts by the Wright Bros to ensure that every other pioneer aviator paid them licensing fees for their patented method of turning a plane.
Patents can delay innovation as well as stimulate it. Any thoughts? Examples? Opinions?
Even though the Wrights developed a system of wing warping to get them around corners, they recognised that movable surfaces at the wing tips might do the same thing. Because their patent was so comprehensive, it disallowed anyone else from developing any lateral motion flight control strategy, unless they were willing to license the Wright's intellectual property.
Given the size and interest of others to want to get themselves off the ground, the Wrights spent a lot of time fighting a war they occasionally won except for the battle that they finally lost. By the time their patents ran out, they had not kept up with the exponential developments happening within the nascent flight industry such that they never regained their former glory and influence. In some ways their stubbornness helped accelerate their demise, because it forced their competitors to be more creative and think outside of the square.
Wiki gives a good account of most of this @
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wright_brothers_patent_war
Other pioneer aviators approached flight differently to the Wright's for other reasons as well. For a start it took a lot not to crash a Wright flyer because of the way the pilots cradle seat was connected by cables to all of the control surfaces. The pilot directed the planes movements by moving his weight around in this harness. While it was a beautiful synthesis of man and machine when it worked, when things got out of hand they were hard to correct. The pilot needed to be superbly fit to keep a plane stable in flight because every movement in the cradle transmitted control inputs to the flight control surfaces. The alternative to this was designing a joystick that commanded all the inputs without the pilot having to throw his weight around. Others also developed spars for their wings and developed solid wings, unlike the glider kite wings favoured by the Wrights which could be *warped* out of shape so as to cause lateral movement.
At the end of the day the government had to step in to create a patent pool because this patent war had effectively lost America the advantage it had had by being first in the air. The patent war had stifled development of ideas and had held back the industry. The Wrights reputation suffered quite a bit because of this.
[edit] In a side note, the one thing the Wrights did not bother patenting was their power plant, which almost everyone adopted or adapted in some way.
They probably would have had much more success in holding those patents, and while they will always go down in history as the pioneers of powered heavier than air flight, their names as an aircraft manufacturers could well have continued to this day.
24 May 09
1 edit
Originally posted by FMFEven though a majority of patents are for large corporations there are still a fair amount done by small companies and individuals. The real cost for those people (in the US at least) is hiring the lawyer to make sure nobody has the patent already or has a pending patent. If we chopped the years for patents to 5-10 years there would be no incentive for the little guy. 20-30 makes it fair for most. What makes me fume is the public domain is music recordings. I think it is still 80 years in the US for someone to keep the rights to a song before people can cover the song free. Those pigs at the labels are trying for twice as much so they can buy the rights and live large off the artists. Hell most musicians do not live close to 80 years. It should be down to 50. But maybe that is another thread.
Patents can delay innovation as well as stimulate it. Any thoughts? Examples? Opinions?
