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Wright Brothers vs. Glenn Curtiss
jvmatthe writes "Today's All Things Considered on NPR had a story about intellectual property and patents from America's history that could have been ripped from today's Slashdot headlines, yet it happened almost a century ago. It discussed how the Wright Brothers, considered the fathers of modern heaver-than-air-flight, had tried to lock up the skies after their patenting of the ideas used to build their airplanes. They had a long, bitter legal battle with Glenn H. Curtiss who also made airplanes; Curtiss is credited with being "the first to make a public flight in the United States, the first to sell a commercial airplane, the first to fly from one American city to another, and the first to receive a U.S. pilot license", among other things. Here's where it really gets interesting: the patent battles dragged on and apparently could have actually hindered the growth of the American airplane industry. It wasn't until World War I that people put aside their differences for the common good and the industry worked together in a spirit of free exchange of ideas! So, does is this a sign for how we might eventually get out of the patent mess we're in now? Some catastrophic event brings everyone together and the locking up of ideas with overly broad patents finally ends? For more reading, the NPR story focussed on Unlocking the Sky by Seth Shulman."
I think it's a sign that we need to go to war with a country with a more enlightened intellectual property policy.
And lose.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Heavier is spelled heaver in the summary... so get ready for the millions of people to tell you about it!
So, maybe this invasion of Iraq might help break this whole patent/IP thing wide open?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Imagine building the atomic bomb with all your enemies looking over your shoulder.
That's how it feels right now about developing standards.
You're building a standard for your company's next product, and you need your competitor's approval...
wtf???
Boogie Gal ---
the more they stay the same.
This should be a lesson to us all that although we think that the problems we face are new atnf will soon lead to the end of the world as we know it, we must remember that there have been patents, big companyies, monopolies and greedy people in the past who held great sway on the way things were done. But somehoe things worked out and we made it through. Think of that the next time you get too woried about the end of the world or how evil BillG is.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
It's always nice to listen to NPR. Usually they make intelligent arguments that very precisely make your point. That show did just that...
The summary was "not only do you have to be creative and intelligent to make something successful, but you also have to share it."
I don't think so... no catastrophe can cure us at this stage. We are far too gone now. Back in 1914 if you saw somebody lying wounded on road you would take him/her to the hostpital, today you Rob the person.
So most probably if you have a bit catastrophy coming, you can expect a patent on the method to fight it. PeriodMy Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
"... It wasn't until World War I that people put aside their differences for the common good and the industry worked together in a spirit of free exchange of ideas! So, does is this a sign for how we might eventually get out of the patent mess we're in..."
This assumption is a bit scary. What about AFTER such catastrophies?
Following this line of thinking, then everything should just go back the way it were. After 2 world wars and 9/11 where are we now? There's still RIAA, there's still Microsoft and their DRM.
Some things just never change, it's sad that you need a catastrophe just to realize that.
Take off every 'sig'!
All your 'sig' are belong to us!
I think that if we went into a major war today, we would not see the same thing that happened in World War II. Companies can profit from war if they get military contracts. If a company develops a technology that the government can use, they (the company) would want to keep those ideas as close to them as possible so another company doesn't come along, develop the same thing for a cheaper cost. At any rate, selling to the military is big business now, and unless this hypothetical war went on for a number of years, like World War II, then I don't forsee anyone working together for the common good. Just look at the medical industry for many examples. Drug companies hold onto their research because they want to be the one that develops the cure for cancer, so they can sell it to the world.
It wasn't until World War I that people put aside their differences for the common good and the industry worked together in a spirit of free exchange of ideas!
It's my understanding that the two parties didn't just "put aside" their differences, the US government paid off each side and told them to quit fighting and get to work building better airplanes and that the government wouldn't allow enforcement of any of their patents. For the good of the country.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
Shulman wrote an article about this in a recent Tech Review. You can read part of it at http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/shulman10 902.asp. (It's premium content so you need to be a subscriber to read the whole thing.) Good stuff.
I'm so so sorry. And now I've apologised, you have to mod me up.
"a sign for how we might eventually get out of the patent mess we're in now"
Not likely... That was a time when corporations weren't as powerful as countries.
So, does is this a sign for how we might eventually get out of the patent mess we're in now?
No.
Another industry has cropped up since then with a common enemy. The legal industry views anybody with an idea or a bank account (us) as the enemy and have been on a relentless, full frontal assault ever since they got all States to require JD degrees before testing and licensing. The first wave was packing the legeslative branches full of those that had read the law and it has been a down-hill slide ever since.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
"It wasn't until World War I that people put aside their differences for the common good and the industry worked together in a spirit of free exchange of ideas! "
:-)
that means if the US invades Iraq, it'll put an end to all patent disputes! Really! I'm suprised Bush hasn't tried that one yet..
Nowadays, most patents are held by corporations. And as we know, corporations do not always share, even in the event of catastrophe.
In fact, Santos Dumont is considered the father of modern heavier-than-air flight in many countries other than the USA. This is because the first heavier-than-air flight with witnesses was with his airplane 14-bis. The Wright Bros. allegedly flied before Santos Dumont, but they didn't have witnesses. Also, the 14-bis was self-powered. Santos Dumont made his public demonstration in the Bagatelle Field, in Paris, in 1906, while the Wright Bros. only could publicly show their airplane in 1908. Just for the sake of information.
My neighbor's
It's not patents but intellectual property that is the problem. Patents expire after a given amount of time so if you come up with a neat gizmo someone else can make your gizmo or an improved version after fifteen years and pay no royalties. With intellectual property though the rights last forever so if you go and write a story where Mickey Mouse goes to visit Bugs Bunny you'll get sued (twice). Intellectual property; stories, ideas, songs, DNA, etc, needs to expire and become public domain after a certain period of time just like patents. This will do two things; keep the companies hungry and looking for new ideas and let the little guy get into the game without facing years of litigation over alleged infringement.
It wasn't until World War I that people put aside their differences for the common good and the industry worked together in a spirit of free exchange of ideas!
I also listened to that NPR broadcast and there is a clarification I would like to make. The parties involved didn't just set aside their differences for WW1. The U.S. government had to step in and effectively end the lawsuit by paying *both* parties. This action then cleared to way for all parties in the airplane industry to work together.
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement. --Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
nice idea, but I don't think that one-click-shopping is going to win any wars. What are we gonna do, bombard them with books?
Well, if you're building it on your own, without anyone else knowing about it, then it's not a standard, is it? Unless you're talking about internal company standards, in which case you can do what you like, just don't expect the rest of the world to accept it. The point is that to increase the chance for your product to be widely accepted, it helps to conform to agreed-on standards. What's so complicated or confusing about that?
The underlying issue that I think you're missing is that you only need standards when the product you're creating is just one of many similar alternatives. If you had a truly innovative product, you wouldn't need any standards, you'd just create your own. Take Dean Kamen's Segway, for example. He didn't have to come up with an open standard for a gyroscopically stabilized two-wheeled human transporter - he just invented it and patented it (although he still runs afoul of road use standards, but that's a different issue).
So, if you want to be creating your own standards, you have to actually invent something, not just manufacture the same recycled pap that the company down the road is creating.
Aeroplane, Car, Computer, Telephone... Name an invention as famous as these, where there is a single inventor (or group of inventors). The difference between innovation and evolution is often in the eye of the beholder. Especially when you have a closer look.
Otto Lilienthal could also be considered as the father of aeroplanes. He has done various research and the Wright Brothers work is based is on his. Of course your free, not to consider a sailplane as an aeroplane.
The idea was also articulated by da Vinci 400years before (with an inpractical flapping mechanism).
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
"Some catastrophic event brings everyone together and the locking up of ideas with overly broad patents finally ends?"
Well... There was a catastrophic event, and although the people DID get together, it seems that other parties are just locking up peoples freedoms to A: make a filthy profit or B: get more control themselves. In the meantime trying to create another war to hide the fact that they themselves are listening less and less to their own people and the rest of the world.
Just to make it clear, the 14-bis was able to take off on its own engine's power, while the Wright Flyer needed to be catapulted.
And BTW, Alberto Santos-Dumont, who was an accomplished inventor, also commissioned Cartier to create the first wristwatch, among more than 100 other inventions.
Having independent income as a prosperous farm-owner, he refused to patent anything so that his inventions would benefit humankind.
He had to fight, and won, the Wright Bros. in Europe too over their attempt to patent the airplane.
He committed suicide when, already broken by seeing his biggest invention misused in The Great War (AKA WWI), he had a triumphal reception in the then-capital Rio de Janeiro during which several well-known Brasilians died in an airplane crash in the Guanabara Bay intended to honour him.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
No, going to war won't help. Companies these days wouldn't fail to enforce a patent no matter what was going on. The only way they'd cooperate with infringing companies would be under presidential order and threat of being shot for treason. And even if that happened, the minute the threat was over, they'd be in court suing for compensation.
Factual corrections are appreciated...
[Tough Army Sgt]: Guys, let's move - the enemy is just ONE CLICK AWAY to the North. [Jeff Bezos ]: I heard that and I own any ONE CLICK process - I'm gonna sue your sorry asses for this patent infringement.
If anyone is interested in this stuff, mostly Glenn Curtiss stuff, I'd reccommend the Discovery Wings channel. I was never much for planes until I got that channel when we ordered digital cable. It's great stuff, I love watching the pieces on the modern technology as much as I love watching all of the historical stuff. I've seen 3 or 4 different shows (3 shows a day, an hour a piece, repeated more or less continuously for an entire day) on Glenn Curtiss and it helps you put a human face on early aviation, makes it more interesting when it's not just planes and dates. I don't think I've seen a show on yet devoted to patent fights over airplanes, but it has been mentioned several times in passing. Discovery Wings channel and the Discovery Science channel are reason enough to your average nerd to get digital cable. (Disclaimer, i don't work for any of the cable companies or the discovery channel. :P)
1) Patent design of airplanes
2) Everyone else rips you off anyways.
3) You begin sueing left and right
4) ????
5) PROFIT!
What about Richard Pearse?
Wrong on several counts. While the Wright Brother's first flight wasn't "open to the public", they did have several witnesses, as they invited some people from the local coast guard station to watch. Also, Santos Dumont's public flight was mere seconds of barely controlled flailing around at a time when the Wrights were making figure eight flights around pylons.
The proof is in who made a success of building aircraft after the first one. Santos Dumount's plane was crap, and went on the scrap heap of history. Wright Brothers, because they understood the concepts of control and aerodynamics, went on to build a highly successful aircraft company based on ever better aircraft. By 1908, the Wrights were demonstrating flights of an hour or more and carrying passengers.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Since you have just about Slashdotted the poor little Glenn Curtiss Museum just down the road from me, let me give you some highlights about this amazing man. More information at the Glenn Curtiss Historical Site.
Glenn Curtiss was not only a true pioneer in the world of aviation, but also in motorcycles. He had the distinction of being the "Fastest Man Alive" for a good period of time after putting his V-8 motorcycle to the speed test. The motorcycle featured at the small museum in Hammondsport, NY - about 1 hour south of Rochester, NY in the heart of New York's Wine Country. The motorcycle, really just a huge engine with a very small seat, is quite an impressive little beast.
Curtiss also developed and implemented seaplanes and aircraft carriers. My wife's grandfather actually saw Glenn Curtiss piloting one of his "Flying Boats". Her grandfather was beaten by his blind father for insisting that there was a boat flying over Keuka Lake!
If you are ever in Upstate NY I highly recommend the Glenn Curtiss Museum. The last time I was there, they even had a great exhibit of classic comic book covers by Dick Ayers.
"I hereby grant this to the Public Domain"
The next "catastrophe" won't be WW3. It will be AIDS. Of course I don't think we can expect governments to pay off the pharmaceutical companies until it is far too late.
In other news, one-click shopping reveals the location of Osama bin Laden and brings Al Qaeda to a standstill.
Coming up next, how the opening of DNA sequencing technology patents will thwart Saddam Hussein's evil machinations.
Does this remind anyone else of 'Connections'?
that they mentioned that even after WWI no airplane patents were issued for nearly 50 years, and American airplane technology still led the world. Also, in the early days of computers (back in the 50's and 60's), all the big players had patents on their technologies but also had informal agreements to not enforce them, for the good of the industry.
Crowded elevator smell different to midget. -Chinese Proverb
So, does is this a sign for how we might eventually get out of the patent mess we're in now? Some catastrophic event brings everyone together and the locking up of ideas with overly broad patents finally ends?
Yes, as World War III looms on the horizon, the world unites to stop the patent madness and give us the uberweapon we really need: One Click Shopping!
rooooar
...why Orville and Wilbur should have gone to all that trouble and then just given it all away? If you invest years of effort, labor, and money in creating something that didn't previously exist, why aren't you entitled to reap the benefits?
Legitimate issues with software patents and digital media copyrights have fostered the projection of the free software/open source "philosophy" onto society as a whole. That's utopian. This "philosophy" works in the specific egalitarian sub-culture that emerged around Unix. It won't work in any environment in which people plan on controlling the results of their efforts in order to maximize their gain. In other words, any human environment populated with something other than comfortable, well-fed saints.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
After the war, the patents were not returned and Pitcairn sued the goverment. The case lasted for over 20 years and eventually (after Harold Pitcairn's death) the Pitcairns won.
Meanwhile, think of the largest companies that build helicopters today.
The Wright brothers actually figured out how airplanes turn and developed a system to control the flight of an airplane. Curtiss just used their results and ideas, improved the implementation but did not do his own research.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
If he was the first to receive a U.S. pilot license... who was his examiner?
Gerv
That would be Santos Dumond, a Brazilian scientist that was living in Paris at the beginning of the 20th Century. In 1906 he flew the first "modern" airplane. Self-propelled, sustained flight. That's the airplane that started it all. A real airplane.
And before I forget, right about that time he went to Cartier and ordered a special watch with a leather strap that he could attach to his wrist. That's right, the first wrist-watch was his idea. How else would he keep the time while flying his airplanes?
There were many who build machines that looked like birds and who tried to fly them. Santos Dumont was one of them, and his machine actually got of the ground.
However, the Wrights not only got a machine into the air, they figured out how to control it.
None of the others, like Santos Dumont or Gustav White, or Samuel Langley, had any idea how to steer an airplane (the rudder does not cause the turn).
The Wrights figured this out and designed a control system that allowed them to fly circle (literally) around any of their competition, who took years to catch up.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
-Send the story to a coworker who doesn't agree with you,
-send a copy to your congressman,
-update your sig to reflect your beliefs,
-get a Free the Mouse bumpersticker and wear it,
-give money to the EFF,
-release a piece of music, writing, photo, idea you came up with to Creative Commons.
-Send a thoughtful letter to the editor to 3 different publications you read.
C'mon people, we don't need more witty remarks.
FREE THE MOUSE!!!!
is before wwi wars were just starting to be mechanized, with still a lot of rifles and calvary - now we (and 'them') have the bomb! About the worst thing that could happen then (very bad no doubt) was trenchfoot and mustard gas, and produced some hero's like Baron Von Richthofen and Eddie Rickenbacker. Now we put up for risk vast civilian areas of Bhagdad and Chicago, live in fear of genetically engineered killer virusus, and, gasp, script kiddiez!
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Not.
But took years to publicise and demonstrate, because they didn't want to benefit humankind as Alberto Santos-Dumont wanted, but just to make a profit.
Still their flights were secretive, and his were open to the public. He didn't ever need a catapult, and at the time taking off was considered the proof of the pudding.
Alberto Santos-Dumont's models nrs. 19 to 22, the Demoiselles, were nice, graceful light airplanes that reached 96km/h and were used for travelling around up to 18km. He used them to visit friends in the country, as he used his balloons to go around in Paris. It was small enough to be transportable in an automobile. His idea was that it would be used by private individuals.
Good they succeeded where they should have started, at services, instead of robbing everyone else the benefit of the airplane for 17 years.
I wonder why only First-World Westerners are allowed any glories. Even former Pres. Clinton admitted to Santos-Dumont's merits. Your aggressiveness and arrogance shows you are a mostly insecure person.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Ronald Reagan once quipped while in office that, 'if aliens landed on this planet and attacked people of the world would lay down their grudges and join forces to defeat the aliens'.
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
Totally bogus argument, as it always has been since 1906.
:-)
"This is because the first heavier-than-air flight with witnesses was with his airplane 14-bis"
The Wrights had no witnesses? Their first flight was witnessed by John T. Daniels (who took the famous *picture*), Robert Westcott, Thomas Beacham, W. S. Dough, Benny O'Neal and Johnny Moore. The Wrights flew in 1904 and 1905 at Huffman Prairie, just outside of Dayton and along a heavily travelled trolley line. By October of 1905, the Wrights were flying their Flyer III for 24 miles and 38 minutes. Octave Chanute, the famous engineer and mentor to the Wrights, witnessed a flight. Amos Root published an account of a flight he witnessed in his "Gleanings in Bee Culture" magazine in early 1905 about the Wrights and their work. Many Ohioans swore out statements saying they witnessed their flights (see Frank Lahm's work in 1931 about this point).
Along comes Santos-Dumont, quite a nice guy for sure, but with a technologically dead-end vehicle based on a Hargrave boxkite that couldn't do better than 722 feet in 21 seconds. Alberto was simply lucky he didn't die in the thing. It was uncontrollable.
"Santos-Dumontians" like to always tout the flight of the 14-bis as being the first because they like the quality of his witnesses. The fact remains that hundreds of citizens witnessed the Wright flights while Santos-Dumont was flying dirigibles.
I believe these people do a great disservice to both the Wrights and Santos-Dumont's work when they insist he was the father of the aeroplane. The story of the Wrights is every bit a story of the struggle to find the secrets of *controlled* flight. There's nothing in the 1902 glider, which their patent was based, that precluded it being built thousands of years ago. And Santos-Dumont contributed to aviation's growth in 1909 with probably the first GPL'd aeroplane - the Demoiselle.
Why not claim Clement Ader or Sir Hiram Maxim as the inventor of the airplane before Santos-Dumont? They hopped off the ground as well. But the difference is, as is with the 14-bis, their vehicles were uncontrollable.
To say that anyone other than the Wright Brothers are the father(s) of aviation is plane wrong
because they didn't want to benefit humankind as Alberto Santos-Dumont wanted, but just to make a profit.
It might frighten you to learn this, but making a profit on your work is not evil.
Besides, what does that have to do with anything. You tried to make it sound like the Wright Brothers didn't fly until after Santos Dumont, and you asserted that there were no witnesses to the 1903 flight. I showed that you were wrong, and you came back with this crap about them not publicizing it. Did you know that the day of the flight, they approached local newspapers and nobody was interested in the story?
He didn't ever need a catapult
And by 1906, neither did the Wrights.
Good they succeeded where they should have started, at services
I don't know where you get this idea from. They built an airplane company that built airplanes. Those are things, not services. They built them to make money, which evidently you consider evil, but they were highly successful at it and the name Wright was on an aircraft company until well after World War II.
Your aggressiveness and arrogance shows you are a mostly insecure person.
The fact that when you can't win an argument on your phoney made up "facts" you resort to personal attacks shows a lot more about your personality than it does about mine.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
1)The USA Nukes Iraq.
2) Oil Prices Go Sky HIgh
3) Competing Car/Engine manufactors Partner/team up (share trade secrets/patents) to produce REAL WORLD alternitive fuel engines
4) Profit.
www.oobersworld.com - For those that ride.
Actually, this kind of thing was not limited to the (then to become) airline industry. Movie production was done largely in New York, until producers realized they would be much more likely to get away with using Thomas Edison's patented motion picture camera without paying exorbitant licensing fees (which Edision was fanatical about enforcing) if they were on a different coast.
And Hollywood was born....
moto411.com
Even former Pres. Clinton admitted to Santos-Dumont's merits.
Pres Clinton, aviation historian? Or just trying to kiss someone's ass one day? You be the judge!
lol.
the airplanes of the Wright brothers used to bend their wings! Santos-Dummont's flight was documented, public and filmed. And he did fly around the eiffel tower. Santos-Dummont is recognized as the "father of aviation" in Europe. Just check these links: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary /Santos-Dumont/DI41.htm
http://educate.si.edu/scitech/impacto/graphic/avia tion/alberto.html
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/blimp/SantosDumont.htm
When you have built only small, missing parts on much that has been done by other people much before you.
When there were other people doing the same thing at the same time with equal or superior success, depending on the measure used.
When these people give away their work to humankind, and you want to have the power of prohibiting everyone's else use of the work for egotistical reasons.
Then yes, it is.
Furthermore, define work. Inventions are inventions, they are not labour or a product or a property.
Read again. I didn't. I said that Santos-Dumont's 14-bis didn't need a catapult, unlike their Flyer.
I didn't, that was another person. And if this another person was wrong in letter, was right in spirit.
Santos-Dumont didn't need to approach the newspapers because he worked in the open. Have you ever thought about how patents hinder progress by causing people to work in secret?
Yet they toiled in secret, while Santos-Dumont in the open.
OK, got me here. I just took you on your apparent meaning. Sorry for this.
No, I don't. I consider egotism an evil, and money the root of all sort of evil, but not an evil in itself. Now patents and copyrights are evils, specially in the conditions I explained just above.
I didn't, you did. I only reacted to your unhappy "Santos Dumount's plane was crap, and went on the scrap heap of history", and by your dishonest hint that he didn't knew aerodinamics by writing en passant "Wright Brothers, because they understood the concepts of control and aerodynamics".
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
And he did fly around the eiffel tower
I know it's hard for you Santos-Dumontians to figure out, but, there's a difference between a dirigible and an aeroplane!
Santos-Dumont flew a Dirigible (a GAS BAG) around the Eiffel Tower in 1901. While he may have flown a Demoiselle around it later, he's noted in aviation history for his 1901 flight in a GAS BAG.
Sheesh!!!
How would MP3, JPG and crap like pop-ups help us in the war? annoy the enemy to death with banner ads?
airplanes were required for the war effort...
Some catastrophic event brings everyone together and the locking up of ideas with overly broad patents finally ends?
Shouldn't the "Catastrophic Event" have been the terrorist attacks on the WTC?
Regardless whether it's Linux vs. MS, US vs. Saddam/bin Laden, etc everyone seems to want to protect and promote themselves as being the only "real" answer to the problem at hand. Until we all learn to respect each other and care more about the common good than just our own turf, we'll continue to have people creating stupid patents.
Where's Ben Franklin when we need him?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
We need a good, old-school alien armada to show up in orbit in my opinion. With the U.S. at the top of the geopolitical heap right now, who else is going to force us to throw out the padlocks and unite for everlasting peace and love and all that other good Megaman type crap? Iraq? Osama? Yeah right! I suppose the "Grey's" might work if they dropped the occasional "anal-probe and cattle mutilation" gig and started terrorizing cities like in XCOM.
[-)
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
The way I heard it Orville told the CAA to go take a flying leap through a donut hole when they offered him Pilot's License #000001
Only NPR would be thrilled to learn of who was the first person regulated to do something.
while the Wright Flyer needed to be catapulted
The Wrights did not introduce the use of a catapult until September of 1904 and ONLY because they desired to stop having to reorient their takeoff monorail into the wind when it changed on them. The Wrights flew before that date exclusively on engine-powered takeoffs alone. Your statement shows how little you know of their work.
Infact, in 1909, during the Fort Myer Army Trials of their Signal Corps machine, one of the contract requirements was to takeoff without use of the catapult. They did it.
I really don't know too much about patents and was wondering if somebody could explain this to me. If I am an inventor, what incentive do I have to work day and night if someone else will just use it and profit once my product is released. I always thought patents (again I don't know much about them) were designed to give the inventor a specific amount of time where he/she/company would be rewarded for their efforts and once that expired everyone could join? Is this not the case?
Wrong. He did know, and thus build his models 15 to 22 after the 14-bis until he got grounded by sickness.
This is a totally unfounded affirmation, he did steer airships and went around Paris in them much before creating the 14-bis.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I know how to do away with all of this patent nonsense from here on out.
I'll make a machine that will approve or reject patents, and store them on microfilm. I'd like it to look like something Terry Gilliam would animate. A huge throw switch for accept/reject. An elephant on a treadmill for a source of power. Two rubber stamps, one for approved and one for rejected. A huge bellows to dry the ink. A massive series of lenses, mirrors and candles to reduce the image down to microfilm size.
Then, I'll patent it. If it gets rejected, I'll keep changing components until it passes. Replace the bellows with a cage of pigeons and a box of popcorn and resubmit.
Once I get my shiny new patent, I'll wait one week. Then I'll tack on the words "with a computer" and resubmit. We all know that the magic phrase "with a computer" makes a new patent. Ask Jeff Bezos - he'll tell ya.
Now - it'll be illegal to use a computer to store or approve patents. It's my idea now. The entire process will have to be done by hand. If you want a patent search...well the patents number around the 4,700,000 range. If it takes a minute to read a patent, then it'll take about 20 man years to prove it's original. By then it won't matter.
And just in case the government gets any funny ideas about "prior art" - well we know those lawsuits aren't ever won. Look at Wizards of the Coast. They managed to patent card games for chrissakes. Even though prior art of all kinds exists *cough cough* Steve Jackson *cough*.
But, I'm a reasonable guy. If they press their case strongly enough I'd be willing to settle out of court. Just pay me a nickel royalty for every patent in your database and I'll be okay with that.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Sorry for the auto-reply, it is to correct a piece of misinformation.
He actually sold his family's farm after he father got crippled in an accident, then proceeding to Paris to study and work.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
I love stories like this so it can end the apocolyptic talk (in the topic of "blah blah") right now. Today is no worse than yesterday. Well, execpt that we have the opportunity to learn from the past...
What is music when you despise all sound?
The broadcast is available for purchase at Audible.com
They don't a direct link available yet but you can find it through Catalog->New Titles->New Daily Subcription
Just to confuse things a bit more ;) - would it surprise you lot to hear that the first powered plane flew in England in 1848? (see this page)
The Wright brothers may have been the first to manage MANNED flight on a powered plane, and that's a huge achievement, but it does bug me a little when people claim they produced the first powered plane.
I truly hope that JvMatthe isn't try to imply that only a war can SAVE THE PATENTS! Killing other people during WWI didn't solve the patent problem for good now did it. The problem lies with the American gov't, and how the Patent Offices work. Solve Those Problems. Instead of constant complaints -- Do Something, that is what everyone in America should tell themselves for the Patent issue to be resloved.
Thank You.
Interesting. References?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
From what I can remember the problems started when the government sponsored project crashed and burned due to lack of aeronautical knowledge(On some river I think). A bit later the wright brothers did there historic flight and attempted to patent there ideas.
Later still Curtis using the well known principle of hindsight totally redesigned the first plane, took off in it and then with government backing tried to prove therefore prior art. This carried on for many years. The Smithsonian even had the original flyer up for many years claiming it was the original flying machine.
The wright brothers deserved there patents because they were the first to get all the bits together. It also a story of the plucky amateur beating the big sponsored governmet.
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
The problem is congress and the administration are convinced they can protect American interests with these ridiculous IP laws. I believe congress thinks they can: (1) Keep American "domininance" in technology fields (2) Make American companies more profitable over the long term.
On the surface, it has a lot of appeal; there's the oft repeated mantra that "If I engage in research I should be rewarded; if I don't get rewarded, why would I engage in research. Therefore strong IP are the best way to ensure companies have a reason to innovate".
The problem is, there doesn't appear to be any evidence this is true, and based on stories like this (and my own experience in the computer field), I think this is exactly wrong. Innovation comes about from the unrestricted sharing of ideas.
I only hope the US doesn't become a 3rd world technology nation before Congress and the Administration (Clinton, Bush, and future administrations) understands they're destroying what they're trying to protect.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Guess what? Brasilians are Americans too. What you call Americans are citizens of the United States of North America. You can't even call yourselves Noth-Americans properly, since this would include Canada and Mexico too.
Guess what? Many of the ignorant among you are.
All of them? Wow... now, move on. Automobiles were invented by Germans, including one named Benz. Not to mention the Britsh jet engine and radar, the wristwatch by the sames Alberto Santos-Dumont, and the world goes ever on...
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
"It might frighten you to learn this, but making a profit on your work is not evil."
It might be interesting to learn that making a profit on your work in not guaranteed.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Invention are not labour, but they are a result
of hard labour, and provide ways to produce
new/better products. So why is it that
labour and products are somehow different?
Considered harmful.
The poster seems to have missed the moral of the story. The guest said that there were some studies done that showed that strong patents might actually slow scientific progress. The Wright brothers incident shows a good example of such. They also gave several examples of competitors agreeing (implicitly, explicitly, or being forced to) not to obtain or enforce patents, and the resultant explosion of technological advancement. Examples include the semiconductor industry in the 70s and 80s, the airplane business in the 50s and 60s, and the PC revolution of the 80s and 90s.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Labour is one thing, products are a similar thing. But inventions are different, because there is no lack of an idea if it is publicized and widely used. If you employ your labour somehow, it can't be employed otherwise; if one sells you a product, he can't sell it to someone else, and if someone manufactures something with some materials and labour he looses the ability of producing something else with the same pieces of material and of time.
In other words, there is not such a thing as intellectual property. Patents and copyrights are artificial, should expire and benefit the public. They seldom do, and many fortunes that today rely on them to enlarge themselves own their existence to not having had to comply with them originally. A pity I lost the reference to the book that documents this.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
just correcting you,
the wright brothers patented their method of lateral control in 1906
santos dummont made his first machine propeled flight in 1906
and in his second try yet in 1906, he could control
the plane in a very similar but not identical way to the wright brothers
and to all reading this thread, according to this Smithsonian Institute page (http://educate.si.edu/scitech/impacto/graphic/av
about santos dumont first flight in 1906
"thanks to this flight the "Archdecon Prize" was awarded to Santos Dumont, who had thus, solved the problem of making a heavier-than-air machine take off by its own means."
-- SouNerd.com
in 1908 the wright brothers where indeed far ahead of santos dumont whom at this time was suffering from multiple sclerosis
but take a look at this Smithsonian Institute page (http://educate.si.edu/scitech/impacto/graphic/av
about santos dumont first flight in 1906
"thanks to this flight the "Archdecon Prize" was awarded to Santos Dumont, who had thus, solved the problem of making a heavier-than-air machine take off by its own means."
so, why would they write this if he wasn't the first to fly?
-- SouNerd.com
Unfortunately sometimes what is being patented is so basic that it practically amounts to patenting the Pythagorean Theorem. The XOR blinking cursor patent comes to mind as an example. The only possible work arounds are neccessarily inferior.
"Obtuse Anger is that which is greater than Right Anger" - Lewis Carroll
From the Burlington Free Press last week, quoting from the N.Y. Times New Service:
/. under YRO or Almighty Buck, but it isn't really news. After all, I saw it in a newspaper last week.
"Christian radio stations oust NPR in Lousiana"
A growing Christian Radio network dislikes the "distinctly liberal and secular perspective" of NPR, and decided to do something about it by knocking the stations off the air. "The Federal Communications Commision considers them squatters on the far left side of the FM dial, and anyone who is granted a full-power license can legally run them out of town." The "them" in the quoted sentence refers to low-power repeater stations, often used by NPR affiliates.
I was thinking of submitting this to
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Even though the aeroplane was "invented" right here in the good old U. S. of A, a lot of the technical language describing it is French.
This should remind us that there were many contributions to the development of aviation. But it is also an indication of how things stagnated in the U.S.
While the Wright Brothers were, initially, keeping their invention quiet--and later, battling over patents--on the Continent aviation was continuing on its own path. Millions of people believed Santos-Dumont was the first to fly because his flight was so public (and well-publicized). Aviation, and the (French) language of aviation captured the public consciousness...
By the first world war, it's even arguable that the U. S. had fallen behind.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Or perhaps Bill Gates will see that Microsoft should become a government department (hmmm, he could become Secretary of Information...).
Hows this for a catastrophe? And some companies are unwilling to avert it to protect their precious IP. Oh wait- that's all happening in Africa, so it can't matter.
Somehow, I don't think it's the lack of a catastrophe that's the problem- I think its the general public's ignorance of the impact of IP laws that is.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Interesting bit of trivia: here in Brazil people do not recognize the Wright Brothers as the fathers of heavier-than-air flight, but rather our own Alberto Santos-Dumont (link, link). Never dug inside the story properly to know who's right and who's wrong.
-- por uma vida + open source
This reminds me of Thomas Edison and how he did everything within his power to keep Nikola Tesla's AC generators from becoming mainstream.
Or maybe the US Patent Office not wanting to award Tesla for inventing the radio.
Or even today the Smithsonian not crediting Tesla for anything he did?
Pfft.
so, why would they write this if he wasn't the first to fly?
I've replied to you elsewhere, but for the benefit of others reading:
The Wright Brothers were the first to achieve sustained, controlled, powered flight (with an engine), in December of 1903. It's true that they launched by catapult, so possibly Santos Dumont was the first to perform a self-powered takeoff. However, you claimed Dumont as "the real inventor" who "invented the airplane". That's misleading, at best.
The US government in general, and the Department of Defense in particular, are able to bypass most any information-property law, if they can make a good case for it. Something like eminent domain, where they can force you to sell something at a price THEY deem fair, not what you're holding out for.
The first major use of this was in The Great War. Fixed Wing Aircraft had been invented about a decade earlier by the Wrights, who envisioned the horror that aerial bombardment could cause, and barred any use of their invention by the military. Of course, the patent was no good oversees, so the German and British militaries were developing FWA for survelliance, communication, and even air-superiority.
At this point, to enter the war, the US army HAD to get FWA. If they'd been forced to use the open market and abide the patent laws, the Wright's could've held out for an astronomical sum- they probably would've agreed to license for $1 billion or so. (Which would've turned into $1 trillion by today, making their family the undisputed wealthiest people in the world).
Since then, other kinds of compulsory licensing regulations (for some classes of patents) have been created. But still, this case has many uses in anti-IP arguments.
The story mentions this anyway, but the merger that ended the squabbles produced the Curtiss-Wright company, which was instrumental in aviation, particularly with World War II aircraft engines. I think they later became part of North American, which is now a unit of Boeing. Of course, Curtiss-Wright still exists, but in name only. The name was applied to a division that was purchased and spun off.
I grew up in southwest Ohio near Dayton, so had access to a lot of Wright lore. Once upon a time, I had a rare opportunity to research the Wrights at the archives at Wright State University outside Dayton. Fascinating stuff. including their personal correspondence and glass-plate originals of the famous Kitty Hawk photography. After plowing through that material, I came to the same conclusion as you. Odd pair of fellows.
:-)
One especially compelling piece of material was the advertising pamphlet they prepared after returning to Dayton. A well done, color, presentation of several variations of their original biplane. The selling price, I believe, was $5000. They'd sell you flying lessons, too.
There's also a beer-drinking song penned by the brothers locked away in the archives.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
is that we do not know how the Wrights would have fared without patent protection. They would still have had their knowledge, expertise and reputation to commercially exploit. Would that have brought them a fair return on the hard work and/or inspiration and/or money invested by them? What would they have gotten? What would be "fair"? Noone knows. Non-inventors also invest money and/or effort. Does IP put them at an unfair disadvantage to inventors?
I think the justifications for IP depend critically on the alledged benefits to society rather than to the inventors since noone really knows what is fair for the inventors.
"Obtuse Anger is that which is greater than Right Anger" - Lewis Carroll
Nuclear apocalypse.
Does anyone else see a problem with this idea?
The sad thing is not how unlikely it is (it is, really), but that I can think of a case: if the people become so unwilling to pursue culture (music becomes unavailable except on specific devices at specific times, television can't be recorded and must be watched when scheduled, etc.) that they learn to do without, and sink into a sort of modern-day sociopathic barbarism.
Yes, it's unlikely, but we have the makings of such a disaster in play already. Some could say it's already started:
Then: William Shakespeare. Beethoven. René Descartes.
Now: Dean Koonz. Britney Spears. Dan Rather
Yes, feel free to argue that there still quality producers of content out there now. But how many of them can you name? I can't because I haven't been buying much music lately, and culture just seems irrelevant these days since few people actually seem to be paying attention to it...
Part of me actually wishes this would happen, except that I'd be stuck in the middle of it myself too.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Each of the following statements holds some truth.
/. concerning any of the incredibly interesting published reports that attempt to actually measure the effect of our patent system on innovation.
NPR has worthwhile content but at times is interested in pushing an agenda (liberal) over seeking out the actual truth.
FoxNews has worthwhile content but at times is interested in pushing an agenda (conservative) over seeking out the actual truth.
Slashdot has worthwhile content but at times is interested in pushing an agenda (patents are bad) over seeking out the actual truth.
I have never seen an actual discussion on
Until I do see such a legitimate discussion, I will appreciated these "patents are bad" threads for what they are.
Life will find a way! Jeff Goldblum.
I get it.
GWBush will solve all our problems here.
By start a war in the middle east that will culminate in the third world war, we'll solve the problem with our Patent processs. WHAT A RELIEVE.
Thanks for clearing that up for us. (_8(|)
What is it about the right wing and squelching the voice of anybody who disagrees with them? I mean, you have lots of liberals who don't care much for Rush Limbaugh or the Fox News Channel or WorldNetDaily, but rarely do you ever see them actively campaigning to have them taken off the air or the Internet. But with the right, it's always "we've got to get NPR taken off the air" or "we've got to get NYPD Blue taken off the air" or "we've got to get Bill Maher taken off the air." And so on and so forth.
Don't these folks care for the First Amendment? And if they were as secure and confident in their beliefs as they claim, it seems to me that they would have nothing to fear by having contrary opinions voiced.
By the way, NPR is a lot more balanced than a lot of righties would have you believe.
I'm not the person you were responding to, but having been born and raised in Africa, I'd like to point out that for me, the issue is not a nationalistic desire to see my own countrymen "glorified" (what a primitive notion!), but rather that when facts are presented, that they be as accurate as possible. This whole thread started with the claim that Dumont was "the real inventor" of the airplane, which clearly is an untrue claim, and also quite clearly provocative, so it's no surprise that it provoked a response from others.
It is no "glory" to anybody if something is claimed for Dumont that is not true. If you wish to promote Dumont, do so with accurate facts and claims.
C'mon,
The best invemtion ever, SNOW SKIS, do not come from the US!!!
why don't we start war with Iraq and send all the lawyers to fight for America?
We would probably lose this war but we would at least get rid off the lawyer scum.
I think it is interesting that in a story submission about the problems with patents there is a link to Amazon. Not only did they sue Barnes and Noble over the 1-Click patent, but we recently found out that they are still actively patenting all kinds of obvious stuff.
I would have much preferred the link point to the book on the Barnes and Noble site. I don't know for a fact that they aren't engaging in the same kind of ridiculous patenting, but as the target of the 1-Click suit, they get all of my on-line book and music business. I had been a regular customer of Amazon's before the suit, and can gladly report that I have never bought from them since.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
Here's a great article about the full story: New Times LA: Holy Crap!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
So you say that they stopped bickering over copyrights because America needed planes for WW1? So how does that impact most of our problems today? Ok, here we go ... Bush decides the best way to oust Sadam is to play Britney Spears all over Iraq's loudspeakers, and that forces all of the music industry to realize they are holding back "American industry" and for national security reasons they give up their copyrights.
See what I'm saying? Airplanes are far more important to our country, from the military uses to transportation, and most of the items under dispute now don't have any hard built-in value - our society is not going to suffer from the lack of their current use, and there is no broader use for them.
So no, a tragedy or war will not cause the modern-day bickering over copyrights to cease.
There are bigger patent issues than who controls one-click shopping. Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
No, I would have to say the Smithsonian is not the most reliable source of information when it comes to claims of "first flight"!
sPh
Patents are not abstract. They are concrete.
What do those "Jesus Freaks" have to do with my argument? I agree with you, just because i'm not liberal and think NPR is a poor source of news doesn't mean I think they should be shut down. Freedom of speech is more important than mine or anyone elses opinion. That situation is silly, NPR f'd up and admitted to it. It should be over with now. This all started by me opening my mouth and letting out my opinion towards NPR. If I can look past their descrepencies, I could only hope that you would not group people with a moderate or less-liberal view than your own with those of extreme conservatism. Thanks
i may agree with you about SI
but Santos Dumont indeed won the "Archdecon Prize" for his flight and it was not given by the SI, but by an American in 1906
for me an airplane is a machine that has to take off by it's own means and fly, and before Santos Dumont's 14 bis flight in Paris in 1906 no plane by the wright brothers that i have heard anywhere has done so
although they managed to do so sometime between this and 1908
-- SouNerd.com
But that's the point. Airships are steered completely differently from airplanes. This is common misunderstanding. Airships turn like boats with a rudder.
An airplane cannot be turned with a rudder. If you try it, the airplane will just skid sideways through the air. Airplanes turn because they bank. To bank you use ailerons, and the rudder is needed to balance the turn (look up adverse yaw).
The Wrights discovered this with their glider experiments, and devised a mechanism to allow an airplane to execute a balanced turn. No one else had any idea.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Agreed that they should expire. But a labour
you spent while working for an employer
or a customer is compensated. A labour you spend on an invention is not immediately compensated,
hence patents are a way to reward the
inventor.
Considered harmful.
..yet we STILL have unethical companies burdening the medical system with ridiculous and frivolous patents, thus putting the entire population at grave risk.
if a patent causes the loss of life, it's a bad patent and MUST be rejected if the patent system is ever to regain even a sliver of respectability.
The R&D doesn't even WANT to find a cure- a cure would mean people would use it and then stop buying medicine. That is every bit as large of a problem. It would be as if your family doctor carefully avoided healing you, preferring to keep you in a state of precarious health and expensively visiting him all the time. The difference is, doctors can be sued for malpractice. Pharmaceutical corporations cannot be sued for malpractice- under the current rules of capitalization they are required to maximize profit, even though they pursue a medical function.
"heaver-than-air-flight"
Learn how to proofread, you monkeys.
Software Patents have benefits that will be realized in the long run. Let's take Acrobat as an example. A number of patents cover the Acrobat. Without patents all these ideas would be hid as a trade-secret by Adobe. Patents force companies to make their ideas public in return for 20 years of protection. That is the simple deal. What is the use of this? Well competitors can start improving the patented product right away. Believe me, no other method will make this companies expose their trade secrets. Also, nature of software a compiled product makes it difficult for a competitior to reverse engineer a product. One more reason that we need software patents.
Yawn.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Just kidding a bit, but the idea of using a catapult vs. a wheeled takeoff is to me no big thing. Coordinated aileron-rudder control is what made everyone's jaw drop at the 1908 Paris Airshow.
sPh
Without patents there would be no research into new drugs, and therefore, a far greater loss of life. You can't afford to spend a decade and a millions of dollars on research without some protection against reverse engineering by your competitors.
Vote for Pedro
The problem with all of this, as at least one poster pointed out already, is that it was a different world back then. The government was more concerned with the welfare of a large entity called 'the Nation' and less with the interests of whichever corporation(s) had the most money for lobbyists.
The article that the slashdot piece points to reveals a glaring contrast between then and now. At the opening of the first world war, the government realized that the nation would require aircraft to fight a modern war and it stepped in to say that the perceived economic interests of the Wright family occupied a back seat to national security. By contrast, Microsoft has spent much of a decade demonstrating that the security standards of computer systems used by government and industry could be such that fifteen-year-olds could enter or break them and have this fact pass with little comment and few consequences.
Today, we live in a media gestalt in which political contributions for advertising mean election and reelection for politicians, irrespective of what or whom their acts as politicians represent. That simply wasn't true in the time of the Wright/Curtis conflict and its resolution.
Basically, don't look for hope here.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
santos dumont used ailerons in his planes in 1906
and the wright brother got a patent for it at the same year, i think some months before dumont's flight
-- SouNerd.com
Funny, I don't think she's exactly done anything for the name, either. The first I heard of it was on the BBC.
The good of it, govenments will have to come together to keep a database of indigenous names and prevent their trademarking.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From what I understand from reading a lot on the subject of the Wright brothers they were very patent/business savvy like our buddy Bill Gates (and Edison) As opposed to simple visionary engineering types who made a giant discovery. Their wing design breakthrough was actually attributed to a Frenchman (even though they were the first to fly it successfully), and much of their design elements were taken (some suspiciously) from the myriad of other air flight pioneers who were all rushing for the same goal. There was a law suit and big story a long time ago about a North Carolinian who claimed the Wright's were working with him but secretly stole his ideas and rushed to Kitty Hawk to make the historic test flight and were savvy enough with Patent office issues to get the first claim. If presented today, it probably wouldn't have held up based on these intellectual property theft issues. So, the moral? Just like the other big successful "inventors" and entrepeneurs, most were just better and the legal issues, not invention.
Everybody knows who invented the airplanea tion/alberto.html
http://educate.si.edu/scitech/impacto/graphic/avi
har har har
As it turns out there would have been prior art against them:r se1.htm l
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pea
bits and peace
Nicholas Daley
Ok wierdness with pasting the URL.
There should be no space between 'htm' and 'l'.
bits and peace
Nicholas Daley
> To say that anyone other than the Wright Brothers are the father(s) of aviation is plane wrong :-)
Unless you say that Richard Pearse was.
bits and peace
Nicholas Daley
As much as it hurts me to say it, a New Zealander, Richard Pearse, actually flew about 9 months before the Wright Brothers. http://www.auckland-airport.co.nz/aviate.html
No one knows about it because the Wright Brothers had the benefit of the US media. Richard Pearse had a couple of sheep.
Do you know why ailerons are named that? Hint: it is a French word, used by Alberto Santos-Dumont. He was building and selling practical airplanes complete with steering, the Demoiselles, before anyone else.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
The point is that the Wrights understood how airplanes turn and they could build a machine that could do it.
Don't forget that the Wrights were flying fully controllable gliders several years before their power flights. During their glider flights they discovered the adverse aileron yaw (before ailerons were named) and figure out how to control it with the rudder.
Please read up on you history. For example take look at this:
Wright's Chronology
Santos Dumont's first heavier than air flight was in October 1906. By then Wright's patent was already granted and they were trying to sell their working airplane to the US Goverment.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
It means it was in Europe that aviation popularised.
Yes, just as Santos-Dumont nos. 19 to 22, the Demoiselles.
Just as Santos-Dumont did. But when he did, he did not kept it to himself.
And kept the whole aviation field in the USA in a check, having the power to forbid people from using their patents. Which should never been granted in the first place, because all they did was build upon other peoples work in parallel with people from other countries. The whole situation parallels the incredible injustice of the patent granted on the telephone by a few moments difference in the filing time.
That while Santos-Dumont produced the Demoiselle and gave away both the concept and the projects for everyone to use, thus precluding Wright brothers attempts at hindering the progress of aviation in Europe too.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Santos-Dumont's first flying machine, the one that flew in 1906 could barely manage a hop. The Demoiselle did not fly until 1909!
Wilbur Wright went to Paris in 1908 to demonstrate the Wright Flyer. It caused a sensation. I believe that Santos Dumont was in Paris during that time.
I happen to think that patenting their invention was the right thing to do. It was quite an achievement. This was not a "one-click" patent. The Wrights risked they lives to perfect their invention.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
The point is that it was not "theirs". It was made of incremental improvements over other people's works preceding and in parallel.
Take the aileron, for one. Patented in the US by Bell in 1.911, invented in 1.909, ignored by the Wrights even if essential for the big airplanes they planned... and already present in the 1.906 Santos-Dumont 14-bis, who favored wing warping in the Demoiselle because this was such a small airplane. With the aileron, if Santos-Dumont had patented it, any Wright patents would have to be exchanged for the aileron patent in order to allow for practical big airplanes and thus generalised, since Santos-Dumont made a point of making his work available for everyone.
But all this was unnecessary, because the European courts saw thru the folly and did not accept the Wright patents.
Had their patent succeeded in Europe and stood in the US, it would have delayed the whole field. So much for patents fostering Science and the Useful Arts...
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Of course the Wrights build on the work of others. As every scientist and inventor does. They used data from Lilienthal and Langley and others. They discovered that the data was wrong (this was computation on how much lift a wing section produces).
So they conducted their own experiments and Orville Wright built the first wind tunnel to measure the lift of different wing sections.
But their major invention was to figure out how to control an airplane in flight (i.e. turn). Lilienthal did it by weight shifting, others tried using just a rudder.
Even Santos Dumont's 14 bis was not really steerable. As it says here.
The Wrights had flown a fully controlled glider in 1902! Nobody else had a clue how to do that until the Wrights have shown them.
The Wright's patent was on the method and mechanism of controling an airplane in flight, not on the aileron. Aileron is just another implementation of the Wright's system.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
And his report was misinformed. The 14-bis had already ailerons. The difficulty of steering resided mostly in the fact that the pilot was standing, thus incapable of using his feet. The body contortioning was not weight shifting, but activating the control surfaces by strings attached to the pilots' clothes. Awkward, but given it was independent development, and since the Wright brothers were working in secrecy and eager to control airplanes everywhere, European courts were sensible enough to deny their claims.
False. They did they work in secrecy, so necessarily all the European designs, and much of the US ones, were parallel developments.
So much worse. That means that, had they succeeded in their patents, they would have been able to forestall aviation during 17 years both in US and Europe.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
False. They did they work in secrecy, so necessarily all the European designs, and much of the US ones, were parallel developments.
Well, I guess we'll have to disagree. To me there seems that there is plenty of evidence that the Wrights were quite ahead of any competition. When Santos Dumont was making hops in his 14 bis, the Wrights were flying in circles in Dayton, with plenty of witnesses.
In 1904 there was not a single heavier than air, powered aircraft in Europe that could have flown at all. Meanwhile the Wrights were flying in circles and made duration flights of over 30 minutes that year at Huffman Praire near Dayton.
Here are some photographs from 1905.
When did 14 bis fly? 1906 or was it 1907?
So much worse. That means that, had they succeeded in their patents, they would have been able to forestall aviation during 17 years both in US and Europe.
Patents can be licensed. The Wrights expected to make money from their invention. Is that so bad?
You seem to oppose the idea of patents altogether. Is there an invention that you think should have been patented? Do you think the patent on public key encryption, let's say, was OK, or not? Especially since public key cryptography was already invented by a British cryptographer, in the 60s - it was just kept secret by the british goverment.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I am not disputing that. I am saying that Santos-Dumont had a much better attitude by sharing what he did, and that served better the world than the Wright brothers secret, proprietary attitude.
October 1.906. But the Wright brothers only cared to show their airplanes in Europe in 1.908. By that time Santos-Dumont was already developing the Demoiselle, the first ultralight airplane.
Yes, because patents can, don't need to be licensed. It they were RAND, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory, it would be much better. But the way it is, they actually managed to forbid other people from flying. That is umititaged evil, and contradicts the spirit of patent law.
No, but I think the current implementation of the concept is counterproductive. Even at the Wright brothers' time, it encouraged them to do things in secrecy, while Santos-Dumont worked in the open. There should be a provision that provided for patents to be granted only to work done publicly. The way it is, the patenting process is a powerful incentive to delay publication for years.
Also, patents should be always RAND. They should reward the inventor, not the manufacturer or distributor.
Software, processes and methods aren't in the original definition of patents, and have proved to be unmitigated evil. They should be stopped now, and all already granted revoked.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
OK. I see what you are saying. The problem is that Santos Dumont did not make any fundamental breakthroughs. In fact, according to this page the Demoiselles, which first flew in 1907, did not have ailerons, or wing warping. Just rudder and elevator.
Also, patents should be always RAND. They should reward the inventor, not the manufacturer or distributor.
That sounds reasonable. The problem is that without exclusive manufacture and distribution how can one profit from an invention? Maybe there should be a mandatory fee for the inventor from anyone using the invention? Except that "using" cannot be as clearly defined as we'd like. Wrights thought Curtiss was using their invention, and Curtiss thought he didn't.
Software, processes and methods aren't in the original definition of patents, and have proved to be unmitigated evil.
I tend to agree with you on software patents.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
That is not true. 14-bis had ailerons before anyone else. He was also the first to use internal combustion engines, while still working in ballons, and to steer dirigibles around. The Demoiselle was also the first ultralight airplane. And BTW, among other inventions he created the wristwatch, commissioning his friend Cartier to manufacture the first wristwatch ever, to be used while flying.
If this was true, how could he reach 100km/h speed and 20km range as he did? But it was false. The Demoiselle used wing warping, simply because the ailerons used at the 14-bis weren't simple and small enough for such a light airplane.
In a word, royalties. Obviously there should be an upper limit, and the option of contesting them in courts if they are deemed prohibitive for a given use.
That would be an argument against patents, because they have the potential of throwing a whole field in disarray, like they are doing now for computing.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
You are right. Santos Dumont was quite an inventor. His contribution to early aviation was clearly extensive.
I think the part that people miss about the Wright brothers is that they made the fundamental scientific discovery of how to make airplanes turn. They discovered "adverse aileron yaw" and figured out how to handle it.
They also made the first systematic study of wing sections (inventing the wind tunnel in the process).
I don't believe those discoveries were patented. It was the wing warping/rudder connection mechanism that was.
That would be an argument against patents, because they have the potential of throwing a whole field in disarray, like they are doing now for computing
Right. Especially, if getting a patent costs more than an average inventor can affford.
I attended a talk by a lawyer at NY LUG, and he said that there are not enough technical people becoming patent lawyers, so some of these ridiculous patents are accepted.
I don't have an answer. I'm too old to go to law school. :-)
...richie - It is a good day to code.
True enough. Too bad their discovery got muddled in the patents war and the consequent "who got there first" dispute.
I think the cost must be high anyway, at least for refused patents. One of the problems is too much applications; people should be charged for spurious entries lacking enough prior art research and clarity.
The problem isn't too few patents in the small guy's hands, but too much everywhere. If you do any work with enough visibility, you are liable to get sued for infringement, and the court costs of fighting are so high you end up paying or desisting even because of totally worthless patents.
This keeps the barrier to entry too high, so that nowadays there are big corporations, lots of small box-shifting VARs and retailers, and nothing in between.
In contrast, Digital got started hardly bothered by patents, Sun got by but had to pay IBM US$20M when they were yet quite small in the middle 1.980s, but now, even if the field is technologically very immature, it is hardly possible that there will be another *innovative* Sun, Digital or even Oracle that won't get severily penalised by patents.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
...richie - It is a good day to code.
So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate your ... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you were
current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and hurl it
into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast array of
8-millimeter video equipment.
gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format that makes
your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as toenail dirt.
This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be made available until
it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a format called "Elroy", so
*order yours now*.
-- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics Revolution"
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