Slashdot Mirror
Satellite Abandoned Due To Orbital Patent
EreIamJH brings news about a commercial geostationary satellite that was launched last month. Due to a launch failure, the satellite did not reach the orbit required to perform its function. The satellite's owner, SES Americom, looked for a way to salvage the satellite, but ran into an unexpected hurdle; a Boeing patent on the lunar flyby process that would be used to correct the satellite's orbit. If another company doesn't purchase the satellite, it is likely to become another piece of space junk. The European Space Agency has posted a gallery of the maps they have put together for man-made debris in orbit around the earth.
Damn! I'm going to have to start patenting all those 'inventions' by Newton. The first one I'm going to call gravity (TM).
What a ridiculous waste of time, money and energy. This is sickening.
...when common sense does not prevail. The company and Boeing need to come to an agreement of sorts in order to avert the turning of the satellite into space debris. We already have enough stuff out there. The fact that there is no explicit "cost" to the company, of leaving something up there is the main reason for the seeming unwillingness for taking action.
Can't we just abandon the whole patent system?
They are suing Boeing in another matter, Boeing told them they could use the patent if they drop the suit (50 million according to the article). Unlikely Boeing will license them the patent.
May be Boeing does not want to licence it for a reasonable price? If this is the only way of getting the satellite (and it seems to be the case) and Boeing knows this, then Boeing might be asking for an unreasonable amount. In fact this amount might make it cheaper to build one from scratch and relaunch it.
At least two reasons, probably
- It costs a lot to license that patent
- Boeing just don't want to license this technology
I know we all want to jump on the patent holder here, but here are the two salient parts of the article.
Primarily this is because SES is currently suing Boeing for an unrelated New Skies matter in the order of $50 million dollars - and Boeing told SES that the patent was only available if SES Americom dropped the lawsuit.
So SES is trying to get 50 million dollars from Boeing, and Boeing is using their patent as leverage to drop the lawsuit.
I wonder what the lawsuit is about.
and two:
SES has decided not to pursue any legal options against Boeing and wants to collect their insurance policy payout. However, their insurance company was not being fully briefed on the options and at this time is planning to pay the policy out.
SES is looking forward to a big payout in the case the satellite returns from orbit. They stand to lose nothing either way. However, the insurance company may step in and declare the policy void if it turns out SES can save the satellite. Interesting conundrum.
SES sounds like a delightful company...
This is what happens when we abandon reasoning in favor of rules.
RTFA. There is an unrelated legal dispute between the two companies and Boeing wanted to tie the licensing of the patent to a settlement of that dispute.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It sets a bad precedent. Pretty soon people will need to pay a licensing fee to ride their bikes due to the patent on a safety device based on the use of a counter motion force derived from two surfaces in contact. Basic physics shouldn't be patentable.
Send more lawyers !
With so much crap like this, why doesn't Boeing make such rescue techniques cost effective and safe enough to do regularly and then offer it as a service = Your satellite dies, we rescue it for a decent fee.
While launching a satellite might cost less than the rescue mission, I would think that figuring building another of the doomed satellite into the cost of launching another would make a rescue mission more attractive...
BTW: don't take it too much to heart, I'm only an armchair astronaut...
Blech. The whole thing is making me sick. Legal extortion from ones who are extorting? Sometimes I wish the Mob could step in. They seem to be the real pros when it comes to the stuff. Real quick and to the point.
Then we wouldn't have patents on fly by procedures or other silly things, well a lot more cement blocks. Is that such a bad thing.
Back to reality, what did SES think Boeing was going to do? Just ignore existing litigation?
import system.cool.Sig;
Does anybody know how this patent even has jurisdiction? I understood space to be a legal no-man's land, so any action taken there can't fall under the laws of any nation. Perhaps they could track it back to "sending the signals from earth", at which point you could do the same thing from international waters or an apathetic country.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So in the case that the patent holds in the USA... why not then involving ESA (european Spece Agency) to solve this or other non-american company....besieds the question if patents are applicable outside earth for that matter ;)..wha's next? suing the martians for a patent??
Famous last words:"but...."
You might do better with ski jump instructions or methods of arranging sails for maneuver on the high seas. A maneuver in space is still just a maneuver and a patent on that looks silly when you take it out of the heavens and put it into situations most of us are familiar with.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Even if the patent is "valid", what jurisdiction would it have in space?
a Boeing patent on the lunar flyby process that would be used to correct the satellite's orbit.
So this amounts to a patent on moving in a given direction? April first passed by almost two weeks ago. C'mon, guys, bad joke?
Unbelievable. We don't need patent reform, we need an angry mob to storm the USPTO and burn the place to dust, then sift through the dust and re-burn anything left, then haul the entire mess to a live volcano. You just can't have a monopoly on basic physics, Boeing, whether or not the rules allow it. Seriously, grow the fuck up and go back to competing with Airbus on technical merits rather than endless pissing contests with the WTO/WIPO.
I know its a pretty reasonable assumption that nobody will read the summary or the article, but come on... The summary says it's likely to become another piece of space junk. The entire last paragraph of the article concerns plans to deorbit the satellite, and claims that everyone involved is "eager to splash the satellite within days".
Where was the patent registered? In the US? So what? The technique will be applied outside the US, in space!
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
...to patent gravity?
Because someone's missing out on a TRUCKLOAD of cash right there.
Huh?
The moon is about 400,000 km away. If they can perform a flyby, doesn't that mean they've got enough remaining delta-V to slightly increase the radius of their current orbit? Or is it a problem with the orientation of the plane of the orbit?
Worst.....Patent.....Ever.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
According to the article the patent has no hope of standing up in court anyway so why not just use the flyby to rescue the satellite? Wouldn't surprise me if SES just want the insurance money as its a lot easier than messing around trying to re-orbit this thing but Boeings "patent" provides a convenient excuse.
Why does slashdot keep running these stories?
It reminds me of those insipid company newsletter I occasionally get emailed which are inept propaganda.
"We scored a design win in France"
Translation: The CEO spent a couple of weeks there eating good food and bumped into one of his school mates in a restaurant and pretended to do some work. Funny how they don't mention he picked a legal fight with another megacorp that caused the project I was working on with them to get cancelled. And it's not we you brainwashed drone.
"Competitor technology not picked in Nigeria"
Well great. I guess we paid a bigger bribe than them. If you subtract the bribe how much did we actually make.
"Project moneyburner a success"
Yeah, because we all worked unpaid overtime and the only customer was internal.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Does anybody have the number of the patent that Boeing is referring to?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Patenting dance-steps? Fucking ridiculous.
China and US said they will go again to the moon... funny... because nowadays or in near futur it will be far more dangerous than in the 60s when you look at the amount of space junk. I'm sure some pieces have a quite high energy and even a super hull won't protect the poor men going to the moon.
As has been mentioned, Boeing wont license the patent because the two parties are currently involved in a lawsuit over a different matter. This is actually quite smart on Boeings part: SES Americom may potentially have to do this again in the future, and Boeing are under no obligation to give them a license no matter what the eventual outcome of the lawsuit is. This is the business version of "Do you feel lucky, punk?"
From the article:
a) Industry sources say the patent is basically worthless
b) Americom wants to collect it's insurance
c) Third party goes to insurer, says "We'll buy the satellite and recover it ourselves"
d) Insurer says "No one told us you could recover satellites" so we haven't taken possession of the satellite (if we did, we'd have to worry about getting rid of it, you see). BTW, good risk evaluation & mitigation, guys. I've got a sandcastle I'd like to insure for $50M vs. water damage. Interested?
e) Third party goes to Americom, says "We'll buy the satellite and recover it ourselves"
f) Americom ignores them, meanwhile tries real hard to de-orbit the satellite really quick.
Now, if this were a movie/book, sticking in "QA finds a problem in the satellite before launch, PHB's decide to launch it anyway, have an unfortunate, totally unforeseen and obviously accidental problem, ditch the unit and collect from insurance" somewhere would fit in naturally.
Hollywood is just a French movie's way of reproducing.The Moon Walk patent http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5255452.PN.&OS=PN/5255452&RS=PN/5255452
which is much cheaper.
I found it interesting that the article said the insurance company did not previously know about the lunar maneuver. Seems kind of incompetent of them, given the kind of money that is involved in this sort of stuff. This leads to a related thought: i wonder how many other satellites have a) used this maneuver or b) been lost for failing to use it. In the meantime, i have patented my "drive around the block because you missed your turn" business strategy, along with my "drive around the block until a parking space opens up" business strategy. You all owe me a MILLION dollars.
In space? doubtful.
In the place where any insurance payout will take place. Very valid probably.
If you read the article you see that SES at this point want the insurance payout and does (pretent) not care for anything else.
When a company, a non corporeal legal entity, has more rights than the meat sacks something is seriously out of whack.
Companies now hold more of an interest in the inner workings of your own body than you do, and have laid successful claim to elements of orbital mechanics.
What's next? Patents being issued on the revitalizing and energizing properties of sunshine? The hydrating effects of water?
What are 1000 patent lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
this is the biggest WTF ever...
guess there are *WAYYYY* too many lawyers on earth...
But you're not patenting "a method for the thermal expansion of a gas" - you're patenting a specific arrangement of parts that allow you extract work from such an event. (And there are lots of different methods that can be used)
An orbit calculation is just (fairly) basic math involving position, velocity and time. Centuries-old math. Basically they patented a specific set of input values to the equations. I call bullshit.
=Smidge=
For some reason, I keep thinking that this patent may have come from a result of work done by Boeing for the US Government, and by extension, the people of the united states, paid for by the people of the united state, and by some extension, should therefore be in the public domain.
This is an issue I have with all government contracting. Not with the contracting itself. But rather, the people at large keep getting sold on the concept of 'trickle down' markets that result from all this high powered, high dollar money spent on these gigantic projects.
The US government, by extension 'the people' decide they want something done, like nifty stuff in space. Bids go out, the people pay for the work to be done, the patents resulting should go to the people. If Boeing wants to use these patents, they should pay a license to the people, as should anyone else. If that isn't fair, then the patent should go into the public domain, it was, after all, paid for by the public.
Yeah, certainly this position is arguable. No, I'm not certain this line of thought is correct, it's just an impression. Rebuttals welcomed.
Really.
This is total and utter nonsense - just friggin move the satelite and prove for once and for all that patents such as these are dumb crap.
There. Said it.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
They use gravity to make the satellite go . . . UP! HOLY SHIZAM!
I had that trajectory plot (done with AGI's STK, I think) as the desktop image on my computer for 3 years.
Here is what the trajectory looked like. The big tradeoff of this method is that you burn most of the satellite's fuel, fuel that was intended to be used over the 15-year life of the sat for stationkeeping. So you end up with a sat in GEO orbit but with much less lifetime. Better than nothing! Well, except for an insurance payout, I guess.
One simple rule for its versus it's
Unbelievable! Wouldn't Douglas Adams's process on falling and missing the ground be considered as prior art?
What are 1000 patent lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
... a waste of perfectly good ocean floor.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Maybe the US military has some more ballistic missiles to get rid of? Smaller target, higher orbit: it seems more of a challenge this time :-)
Imagine if pythagoras had patented the old x^2=sqrt(y^2 + z^2) we would all be squarely fucked!
So maybe I will patent driving to the shop to buy milk and you can all either pay me for the license to drive to the shop for milk or download all your drives to the shop for milk from pirate bay.... its ridiculous...
I say just perform the maneuver and let the judge tell Boeing its ridiculous.
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
Can we get a "fuckingstupid" tag?
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
If the satellite + launch - salvage flyby costs more than 50 million (which is not unrealistic), they might go for it.
Can they really contractually obligate themselves to drop and not refile a lawsuit, though?
The lawsuit for the patent infringement has to be less money that losing the satelite. So, why not fix the problem and let the lawyers sort it out?
Why not? (the lawyers that is)
Okay, so the patent won't stand up to scrutiny.
The company is already in court, suing Boeing on an unrelated issue.
But they won't risk violating this terrible patent, why? Clearly they're more than willing to risk a lawsuit from Boeing.
If the patent is so obviously invalid, it won't take much effort to fight and have it invalidated. And on the off chance they fail, they can argue the issue to a judge, who will decide the value of the infringement, as opposed to Boeing, who refuses to budge.
And time on a satellite is very, very expensive, so they will easily be making tens of millions of dollars on the deal, worst case.
This whole story makes no sense. Sounds like something even shadier is going on under the table, and they'd prefer to use this as cover.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
To "space matters." ??
Some corporate bozo just found out the incompetence of the USTPO isn't just in software patents, it's stupidity crosses ALL boundaries and affects every activity, personal or otherwise.
Giant corporations and multinationals have purchased the USTPO lock, stock and barrel. It's snuggled up in their pockets right next to the USDept Of Justice, our Congress, and those Judges who are given expensive trips to re-educate them in ways they can help corporations circumvent the Sherman-Clayton Anti-Trust Act, and other laws.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Were I thus inclined, I'd go for the biggest market out there - patent a "procedure to transfer one's hereditry information onto a partial duplicate of oneself or the recreational practice thereof, through the use of a pshysio-mechanical maneuver with an individual of the opposing sex..."
-
No - dumping the satellite and collecting the insurance is the smart thing to do. The satellite was supposed to have a 15 year lifespan. With the reduced fuel after the "patented application", it only has 4 years - so they're only going to get about 1/4 the revenue, and still have to launch another one. In other words, their satellite had already lost 3/4 of its' value no matter what.
Since this is slashdot, let's use a car analogy.
You buy a car, and you expect it to last 15 years (okay, you buy a JAPANESE car, and expect it to last 15 years), for $30k. However, just after you take it off the dealer's lot, it gets pretty much totalled. The insurance company will pay to fix it, but it will never be the same, and they've told you that after 4 years, you'll have to scrap it because the repairs will not last beyond that time. In other words, even after everything is "fixed", you'll have to fork out for another car within 4 years ...
You will have spent $60k for 2 cars, for 19 years of combined service, or more than $3k/year.
Or you can take the insurance payout for the full value and buy another new car that will last 15 years. The new car is, essentially, free, so you $30k investment for 15 years brings your cost down to $2k/year.
Scale up the numbers, and they hold true for the satellite company. Keeping the old one will saddle them with additional capital costs of almost 60%.
I wanted to say something but it has been patented by eric cartman!
I fail to see where an expired patent makes money for its inventor, licensees or any patent agents. When the invention is no longer monopolised by the patent proprietor, what is its purpose? Its purpose is that anyone can use the invention. Can you please show me how I'm ignorant or where I'm lying?
So the patent is used as a legal dfence, not as something to protect the invention itself.
If you or I would do something like that, it would be called blackmail: I give your kid the medicine it needs, when you stop asking for that loan I have with you.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Just guessing, but the patent in question might be about Ed Belbruno's US patent #6999860, "Low energy method for changing the inclinations of orbiting satellites using weak stability boundaries and a computer process for implementing same" It's the similar to the trick that Hiten used back in the 90's. Basically, a spacecraft in Earth orbit enters a highly eccentric yet fairly low energy trajectory that takes it out very far from Earth. As the vehicle passes approaches apogee the perturbations from the moon and the sun become significant, altering the trajectory. Only difference is that in Hiten's case, the return trajectory resulted in a free capture at the moon.
Shake: "You don't own space, so quit acting like you do!"
Brings a whole new meaning to the old "Ain't Boeing, Ain't Going" saying.
Now if I can just figure out how to get my bumper stick up to the satellite...
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
SES has decided not to pursue any legal options against Boeing and wants to collect their insurance policy payout.
Why operate a satellite for years at diminishing returns when you can get an immediate big payoff? And as a side benefit the blame goes to a competitor whom your are engaged in a lawsuit with. Immoral? Not to them. Just businesses screwing each other. The Insurance company will pass the loss down the chain. Somewhere down the chain I figure I'm going to end up paying in a tax . Especially since the Fed and Congress are into the business of bailing out companies.
No one can hear a lawyer scream.
You can't do that - Scientology already has a patent on dumping things in volcanoes.
If I damage my car, my insurance company doesn't just take my word for it that it's totalled and hand me a check. They send an assessor out and THEY decide if the car is salvageable or a total loss. Why in this case is the insurance company so willing to pay up? Why don't they tell SES "Um, you need to at least try to contest that patent before we're paying. We'll cover court fees, but we think that will be much less costly than building and launching a whole new bird." They beancounter the average citizen to death on any/all claims but are willing to fork over $50 million without so much as a word of objection?? Something does indeed sound fishy here.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Perhaps the cure involves eating cow nuts or something and he'd rather not tell his clients...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
What is The Onion going to do for stories now? Surely nothing can look more silly than this story.
America, Home of the Brave.
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9805/13/crippled.satellite/index.html
A CNN article about the procedure and how it was done back when they first tried it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That's the thing... it's not technology. It's an action. I guess if someone patents breathing we're all fucked.
Interestingly, I imagine that if we had to make a maneuver in a maned space craft to save the crew and that maneuver was patented, the crew would be fucked.
You sure are doing a great job spurring innovation in space Beoing!
I would've never thought you could patent a flight pattern. I wonder how many patents I accidentally infringe on in a given day? I wonder if you could patent "one creme, one sugar" as a coffee mixing technique?
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
well shoot... With the tricks i've picked up over the years, and after I get back from the patent office, you guys (men) better watch yourselves... I'm going to put patents on every sexual maneuver that I can think of!
Just pointing out the stupidity of things - and 15 minutes out of hibernation as well.
Make the correction, and screw Boeing. They can't patent physics, nor mathematics.
No, wait! Hold on! I have this great idea, how one would bring an airplane from flight down to the ground to disembark passengers and cargo! It's called "landing" (TM, patent pending).
I wonder if Boeing would be interested in licensing it?
Morons.
Toad-san
Oops.. thats it .. no more playing any kind of ball games where you rely on bouncing it .. I'm gonna patent that!
.. ha .. well given that the USPO ignores such minor things as orbital mechanics I think we have a good case!
Prior art
--- This meme is memory intensive
Wouldn't all of the oceans on earth, being moved by the moons gravity for millenia count as prior art? Or is it an invalid claim because the ocean is not a person and hence cannot produce prior art? (Partly serious question) Scientists have proudly ripped of nature for generations, somethings like bits of genetic modeling and science that costs millions to research should get patented even though they are jsut ripping off nature. But gravity seems a bit....
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They are in a case with Boeing. So they either:
Drop that case, and risk loosing a potential 50 Million dollars. I am assuming they were planning on making more then 50 million from the Sat.
Break the patent and challenge it in court. Based on the article, you would think this would be the best option. However, the article is clearly biased against patent, and makes no attempt to explain it.
Let the bird die and collect the insurance.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He patented specific thermodynamic cycles, not the basic principles of thermodynamics themselves. Close but not quite. In this particular case, the key innovation was burning the fuel inside the engine using the same air that takes part in the cycle to extract the work. Compare that to a steam engine where the combustion gasses take no direct part in the cycle.
There are MANY ways to convert heat into work, so I really don't take much issue with patenting novel ways to do so.
=Smidge=
"In space, no one can hear lawyers scream."
Can we try?
Please?
And for a good statistical sample, let's use something like 1 million lawyers.
Finally, a space program the whole country could get behind.
-Styopa
It sounds like the insurance payout's worth more to them than a satellite with a drastically shortened lifespan, so they're using the patent as an excuse not to do the recovery.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Go send the signals from a country that doesn't recognize that patent.
Duh.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What will happen is this. His methods will be labeled quackery, he will be mocked, and there will be ridicule of his unscientific methods. Pharma companies will push their propaganda that only their scientifically-derived drugs work, and will continue to sells its drugs as teh best possible thing short of a cure (does anyone still feel that prozac helps?). Cures are the demise of pharma companies. They don't want cures. Much like RIAA, they want subscription fee for life, not pay once and enjoy for your lifetime.
The FDA will side with pharma companies, as it has been doing for decades.
Passengers of Lunar Flight 697: We are very, very sorry that we're about to crash and burn in Earth's atmosphere. We are aware of a maneuver which could save us, you, and this entire $2.6 billion spacecraft, but it's patented, and we place great importance on ethics here at Lunar Holidays Ltd. That's Ltd for "Limited Liability," by the way folks.
This has been your captain speaking. Thank you for flying with Lunar, and have a nice death.
This has to be an late April fool's joke. There is no way you are going to do a Lunar fly-by of a satellite that didn't even make it high enough for geosynchronous orbit.
I would have just saved the satellite and dared them to sue me and see how long that patent sticks up in court. It would have made a great test case.
Let's say that as you drive the car out of the dealer's lot, a timer labeled "end of life for car" starts counting down from 4 years. This sucks for you. Pouring gasoline all over the car and lighting it on fire is the equivalent of what SES Americom is doing. Yes, that makes them more money, but it would be better for the world if they would instead sell the damn car to someone else who would use it for those four years. It's amazing if their insurance doesn't deduct the remaining value of the satellite after the initial launch debacle from the payout.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Why not try and get an insurance payout for the lost revenue, and use the satellite for 4 years? That way they don't need to schedule a new launch right away, and we don't waste resources building and launching another satellite.
When I looked at this, the thought occurred to me that we have become the "pig-pen" of our solar system.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Well this explains why so many people see things in the night sky's that they mistake as UFOs. A satellite falls or moves from orbit and shows a weird reflection into the earths atmosphere and it looks like a UFO.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Certainly seem like a novel way to use a swing to me.
A patent should be non-obvious to one schooled in the art. So the standard is not, does it seem novel to you, but rather, would it seem obvious to an expert in swinging.
How many swinging experts do you think the patent examiner consulted before granting that patent? (And can I get their phone numbers?)
...that in space someone could hear someone scream "PATENT!".
In all seriousness, if there is such a thing, do patents extend into space? And if the answer is yes I have a deeper hate for the oppressive stupidity of patents and those that care for them...and of course all other oppressive stupidities, I guess.
* I was aware that in space nobody can hear you scream.+
+ I was also aware that in space not a whole lot of hear goes on anyways.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Can someone please tell me why a lunar flyby would be needed to restore a satellite to Geosynchronous orbit? That seems outrageous.
Are you saying we should send claims adjusters into low earth orbit without space suits? Because if you are saying this I agree completely.
eissgmuller, umm, wiseguy...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Diesel's patent was conceptually and mechanically unique in his time. Read the patent and actually understand what he's claiming. The thermodynamic cycle is a result of the unique approach to the problem, not the invention itself. Think of it as a "collateral-damage" patent.
You might want to actually understand what makes the Otto and Diesel cycles unique before continuing this discussion.
Using orbital mechanics to adjust the speed and trajectory of satellites and spacecraft would only have been unique in a time distant enough in the past that any patents on it would have expired by now. The only thing "unique" in this case is the times and velocities used.
=Smidge=
Prior art. Kepler had this one in the bag long ago.
This is like GM having a patent on the process of throwing a car into a powerslide to correct the car's trajectory.
You come to a hard corner on the edge of a cliff, and you are going too fast. There's only one thing you can do to keep the car on solid ground and save your life. You could hit the brakes, throw the back end out, go back on the power at the right point, countersteer through the slide and then lift off the gas and take out the countersteer, and continue on your way. But wait, GM has a patent on that process, you can't do it. RIP.
This is an excellent analogy to the situation in the article. I hope this helps the level of extreme stupidity in this situation sink in.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Don't hate the playa, hate the game. Your anger should be directed towards the USPTO
I don't think anyone here would have a clue how to do those low-energy space rescues if Belbruno had not disclosed his method.
We can argue Intellectual Property, or the more politically-correct "patents, copyrights, and proprietary material" all we want, but one has to give the dude some respect for figuring out how to "hack" orbits. He also started out on the NASA/JPL payroll, and if the gummint had been willing to keep him on the payroll, this thing could have been public domain. A mathematician has to make a living, sometimes.
... SES Americom announces plans to re-enter the malfunctioning satellite somewhere over Chicago.
Have gnu, will travel.
Patents exist to give inventors an incentive to invent and disclose their invention.
Boeing already had an incentive to develop the lunar flyby process: they wanted to save their own satellite! If Boeing were to not have this patent, they still would have developed the process. So why give them a patent?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
My first thought was that if anybody had any sense, the insurance company would pay Boeing a license fee to use method described in the patent. Everybody wins:
SES gets use of their satellite.
The insurance company negotiates a license fee much lower than the loss-of-mission payout.
Boeing gets money back on the effort they spent designing the procedure.
Of course, it's not a given, and there's other factors to be taken into account. There is a small risk it won't work out. More pointedly, they will have to expend a good deal of stationkeeping fuel to salvage it, which will reduce the useful life of the satellite. The article says 4 years is expected. They were probably originally planning 10-20 years of use, so even if the patent didn't stand in the way, they might not be able to recoup all their costs in so short a time. The update at the end of the article suggests this is the case. And of course, this procedure takes months to accomplish, during which time they still won't have use of the satellite.
If you read the article you will also find out there is a legal game going on between SES and Boeing, because SES has an unrelated $50 million lawsuit against Boeing that is straining any possible negotiations.
Regarding the idea of patenting this, I'm personally not convinced patenting the lunar flyby salvage technique is as outrageous as it's being made out to be. They're not patenting gravity. They're patenting a method for a non-obvious utilization of gravity. Non-obvious enough that it took 30 years of launching and occasionally failing to properly orbit geo-synchronous satellites before all those brainy rocket scientists tried it. From "Method of exercising a cat with a laser pointing device" to "Method of using cross-flow filtration for separation of solids," there's absurd patents (even an abuse of the system) and legit patents. What is fundamentally different between Boeing's lunar flyby salvage patent and the latter example I gave? They both use gravity, and as far as I can tell don't patent a specific device. What about software algorithms? Is the LZW patent legitimate? The space junk angle is apparently irrelevant. If SES doesn't find a buyer for the satellite or work out something with Boeing, they'll de-orbit the satellite. There's plenty of fuel onboard for that. Space junk would actually be a bigger deal if they did salvage it. Geosynchronous satellites don't normally have enough fuel to de-orbit at the end of their life. Instead they push up to a higher orbit that's out of the way and takes much less energy to get to.
No university or whatever other small entity can afford that kind of money.
On the other hand, that's peanut compared to the sole marketing budget of a pharmaceutical company.
So you have to persuade them to finance the development of a drug. *BUT* most company will refuse outright to spend some million of dollars it they don't have the assurance that they'll be able to subsequently earn billions of money out of it with no other allowed any chunk of it.
Thus you end up being forced to patent you idea if you hope that some day it will be used in a drug.
The drug patents is the only way we've come up to encourage the entities with money to help fund the development of drugs.
So although I agree that patents don't do any good thing to medicine, you need to come up with an idea to finance elaboration of drugs before dissolving them. And that's the hard part of the equation. and medical companies refuse to sell the medicines in countries where they are unlikely to turn a profit The problem is even worse : They *could* find ways to make a profit on drugs sold there (maybe my making the drugs where labor would be dead cheap - India has been proposed as a solution for Africa's AIDS drugs). But *those* ultra-low-cost drugs for Africa could end up, for example, in the lucrative European market and become concurrence for the full-price drugs sold there, thus denying to the company the possibility of making even more money by selling drugs at a higher price.
It's not that they won't make profit, it's that there's a risk of the profit not being as high as it is currently. That's the tragic reason Africa is dying of AIDS.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Because customers will pay less to be on the "broken" satellite. So the revenue will be less real revenue, but insurance probably doesn't take that into account. So dumping it in the ocean makes them more money than using it.
Learn to love Alaska
Even if they deducted 1/4 from the payout, the satellite company would still be way ahead in terms of cost per year.
Also, they don't want someone else buying it at salvage rates and running it in direct competition for the next 4 years ...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
And other navigation routes. I bet that Chicago to Boston would bring a lot of revenue!
Since when does US law apply in outer space ? What about any other country that has put up a satellite - can they enforce their patents for infringements that occur in orbit - or further out in space ? What about Antarctica - perhaps US Patents can be enforced on the US base, but not on any of the bases.
Oh, I was just clarifying, that's all.
The only reason patents, copyrights and laws hold any power is because you allow them to. What happens if you say "Fuck it - I'll do it anyway?" You might get caught, you might not. Now, if you have brains, you create an LLC, have the LLC break the patent, then when the LLC gets caught, you walk away. Rinse, repeat.
The problem is, we forgot to make our goverments and corporations Three Laws Safe.