The Wright brothers patent war centers on the patent that the Wright brothers received for their method of aircraft flight control. They were two Americans who are widely credited with inventing and building the world's first flyable airplane and making the first controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903. In 1906, the Wrights received a U.S. patent for their method of flight control. In 1909, they sold the patent to the newly-formed Wright Company in return for $100,000 in cash, 40% of the company's stock, and a 10% royalty on all aircraft sold. Investors who contributed $1,000,000 to the company included Cornelius Vanderbilt, Theodore P. Shonts, Allan A. Ryan, and Morton F. Plant. That company waged a patent war, initially in an attempt to secure a monopoly on U.S. aircraft manufacturing. Unable to do so, it adjusted its legal strategy by suing foreign and domestic aviators and companies, especially another U.S. aviation pioneer, Glenn Curtiss, in an attempt to collect licensing fees. In 1910, they won their initial lawsuit against Curtiss, when Federal Judge John Hazel ruled:
It further appears that the defendants now threaten to continue such use for gain and profit, and to engage in the manufacture and sale of such infringing machine, thereby becoming an active rival of complainant in the business of constructing flying-machines embodying the claims in suit, but such use of the infringing machine it is the duty of this Court on the papers presented to enjoin. Of the nine suits brought by them and three against them, the Wright brothers eventually won every case in U.S. courts. Even after Wilbur Wright had died, and Orville Wright had retired in 1916 (selling the rights to their patent to a successor company, the Wright-Martin Corp.), the patent war continued, and even expanded, as other manufacturers launched lawsuits of their own—creating a growing crisis in the U.S. aviation industry. Many historians believe the patent war stalled development of the U.S. aviation industry, but others dispute this claim. Perhaps as a consequence, airplane development in the United States fell so far behind Europe that in World War I, American pilots were forced to fly European combat aircraft instead. After the war began, the U.S. Government pressured the aviation industry to form an organization to share patents.
Patent During their experiments in 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 US Patent 821,393 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 it covers "any construction" for adjusting the outer portions of a machine's wings to different angles on the right and left sides to achieve lateral roll control. Court decisions stated that devices like ailerons, which would eventually become the most common method, were included under the patent. The concept of lateral control became essential to successful flight, used by nearly all airplane designs with the exception of some types of ultralight aircraft. Letters that Wilbur Wright wrote to Octave Chanute in January 1910 offer a glimpse into the Wrights' feeling about their proprietary 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." 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." The broad protection intended by this patent succeeded when the Wrights won patent infringement lawsuits against Glenn Curtiss and other early aviators who used 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.
Patent war
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