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.

Comments

They can patent that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn! I'm going to have to start patenting all those 'inventions' by Newton. The first one I'm going to call gravity (TM).

Re:They can patent that?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bad name and will never be approved. A better one is "a procedure to transport a payload from one point to another by the use of an attractive force that is proportional to the mass of the payload and a reference object and is inversely proportional to the square of the distance of separation between the respective centers of mass". This one will be approved in a heartbeat and you can immediately use it to sue the airlines. See if you can get an injunction to prevent airplanes in flight from violating your patent. And if they crash you can sue the estates of the passengers!

Re:They can patent that?

[pieterh]

No, this is a myth. New ideas get shared because they are very hard to keep secret. Patents do not promote disclosure of ideas that can be kept secret, they protect ideas that will inevitably be shared or reinvented in any case.

And since patented ideas cannot be reused or expanded on, patents reduce the sharing and reuse of knowledge, they do not promote it. Overall, patents are very harmful for technological progress. This is why, e.g. oil companies collect patents on solar power, and telecoms firms collect patents on VoIP.

The real purpose of patents is to make money for patent holders, patent experts, and patent lawyers. Anyone who says differently is lying or ignorant. Period.

Re:They can patent that?

[thePig]

Not quite.
In India, near where I live , there is a village doctor who can completely cure jaundice (at least the ones caused by Viral hepatitis) with a medicine his grandfather invented long long back.
It is an amazing medicine - he has cured people with bilurubin count as high as 12 - that too with just two portions of this medicine.
He keeps it a secret - just as his grandfather and his father has done.
Since he is not known outside, only a few people get the benefit of the medicine.
Also, if he dies before he can tell his children about the medicine, this information is lost forever.

That is where patents can help. If he can just patent it, and sell the patent to medicine companies, he would become richer than he can now even dream of. The companies can then sell the medicine all over the world and people all over gets the benefit.

This is the reason patents are there. And it makes a whole lot of sense too.

p.s -> he does not believe any one, so he doesnt believe in patents also. but that is a completely different matter.

Re:They can patent that?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Well if it matters to you the direct approach (ie bouncing light of mirrors into* a sterling engine) is unencumbered (it *was* patented, so don't worry anyone will repatent it).

* "onto" would be the more correct term physically, but the sunlight makes the engine turn, so I'm thinking "into" is a nicer way to say that

Also oil companies have patents on solar power because solar panels are made of ... (tadaa) ... oil (well an oil substrate, followed by Si, followed by more oil).

If it makes you feel better, they hardly have any patents on biofuels (I guess they thought that using people's food to drive cars was both not feasible and inhumane. The "green" nuts thought that it lowered co2 and killed (faraway) humans, again lowering co2 output, so I guess for them it's just great business, right ?)

And since you are so against oil companies (not that I'm pro, but I don't believe they're evil, and I find your conspiracy idiocies truly irritating and hypocritical, since you typed said post in on a product, made by those "evil" oil companies), surely you do not have a car, or anything made of plastic ?

Right ? The keyboard you type the answer to this post on is ... wood, right ? Because without oil, it couldn't have been plastic.

Re:They can patent that?

[JrOldPhart]

I'll bet he has the people stand/sit out in the sun for long periods waiting for the cure.

Re:They can patent that?

[dabadab]

New ideas get shared because they are very hard to keep secret.

And that, my liege, is why patents were not meant to apply to ideas but to actual inventions.
Having the idea that some elastic stuff would come really handy, but that's just an idea that anyone can come up with. But, on the other hand, the process of vulcanization is an entirely different beast: it can be kept a secret rather effectively and it really takes some hard work (or huge luck) to come up with that.

Re:They can patent that?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Perhaps he doesn't tell the recipe just to protect the source of raw material he uses from depletion?"

Don't be silly. You can get human brains anywhere.

Re:They can patent that?

[saider]

And since patented ideas cannot be reused or expanded on, patents reduce the sharing and reuse of knowledge, they do not promote it.

You can patent an idea that improves on another patented idea. Also patents increase the sharing of knowledge because the process is stored in a public database for all to see. As opposed to a trade secret, which truly stifles innovation.

Patents do slow down the reuse of ideas, but only for a limited time.

Patents are a problem these days because examiners are awarding inappropriate patents, not because the system itself is flawed.

Re:They can patent that?

[betterunixthanunix]

No offense, but this cure should be general knowledge. Medical patents are below software patents on the scale of grotesque abuses of the patent system. First of all, if this cure was patented, it is unlikely that it would ever find its way to third world countries, especially unstable nations in Africa. This has been the case with AIDS medication in the past -- the governments of those countries are told that they risk economic sanctions if they try to infringe on the patents, and medical companies refuse to sell the medicines in countries where they are unlikely to turn a profit.

There are a very, very limited set of cases where patents are a good thing, and medicine is about as far as you can get from those cases. Telling people that they cannot make the medicine they need because you have a patent on it and it wouldn't be profitable to sell it in a poor region is a disgrace.

Re:They can patent that?

[betterunixthanunix]

Considering that many of the medicines that are routinely used these days were discovered before drug patents, I would say that you are just completely misinformed. Drug patents have one interesting side effect though: some people are unable to get the medicine they need, because the drug companies refuse to sell it in a region where they are not likely to turn a profit, and the governments of those regions are told they face economic sanctions if they tolerate patent infringement. Drug patents are a disgrace that worsen an already bad medical situation in Africa.

Re:They can patent that?

[SharpFang]

This is why, e.g. oil companies collect patents on solar power [snip] Not so that they alone can make money off of solar power once the oil runs out? By then the patents will be expired.

But currently you can't improve the technology basing on patents they hold, so you can't create competition worth speaking of.

Patents have a relatively short lifespan. But it's not 'I can't produce X because it's patented' that hurts worst. It's 'I can't design, produce and manufacture a far superior Y of which X is a part'.

Re:They can patent that?

[maypull]

Nobody is saying that oil itself is evil (yet), but rather, that the tactics employed by oil companies are designed to stall the use of new energy source for as long as possible. Evil is a human emotion. Do you really think corporations have human feelings? Bottom lines are what matters.

There's another, less Machiavellian reason: it's good business sense from a strategic point of view. The supermajors are beginning to try and turn themselves around to become "energy companies" instead of "oil companies". See BP's partly-successful greenwashing attempts such as changing their tagline to "Beyond Petroleum".

The writing is on the wall, and they see it. Patents such as these, as well as stalling alternative energy adoption (I don't deny that it's attractive to them, but I don't really believe that they sat around in board meetings and decided upon it as a strategy), also attempt to ensure cashflow once the wells dry up.

For disclosure's sake, I do work in the oil industry (in the UK, which is in its twilight years for production), but I'm neither an apologist nor against it on principle; it just pays the bills -- for now.

Re:They can patent that?

[iminplaya]

If it crashes into a graveyard, my patented algorithm will determine where to bury the survivors.

Re:They can patent that?

[SQLGuru]

Not everything in corporate America is patented. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret). Patents give you legal protection of your invention for a set period of years. Trade secrets give you benefit for as long as you can keep it a secret. The formula for Coke has been kept under wraps for many years not because it isn't patentable, but because once the patent "runs out" anyone could make it.

So, the formula he uses to cure jaundice is a trade secret. Of course, the implication is that it is not covered by the FDA which could lead to other complications for this guy. I would think that he would be better off with a patent licensed to a big drug company. They'd do the work to get it approved by the FDA and take the hit of any lawsuits and he'd get some cash for his family. If the license was worked right, he'd be able to continue to use it. But I am not a lawyer.

Layne

Re:They can patent that?

[RKThoadan]

Well, someone else wanted to do it and then discovered that it's patented, so it's obviously not terribly unusual.

Re:They can patent that?

[Anonymous Coward]

or he could, you know, tell everyone what it is.

Re:They can patent that?

[Firethorn]

But he's not, at the moment at least, he's keeping it a trade secret.

So, if anything goes wrong, the knowledge would be lost forever. This happened with a specific process used to make artificial gemstones(I think rubies). The inventor died without passing it on, and while we've found alternate methods, we've never found [i]his[/i]. The process is unique.

By allowing patents, we get people like him to divulge his or her information in exchange for protection of their patent, allowing them to make money off from it in a non-secretive fashion, helping society as a whole. Beyond that, setting terms and time limits is 'tweaking' the formula to try to gain maximum benefit.

Re:They can patent that?

[mcmonkey]

Don't be silly. You can get human brains anywhere.

I was going to make a comment about human brains being scarce, but then I realized quite the opposite.

Not only are human brains plentiful, but most will be in new, un-used condition.

Re:They can patent that?

[pieterh]

Developing an onnovative new drug costs a LOT of money. Uhm, developing any product at all costs a lot of money. That does not mean patents promote innovation. Good lord, developing software is extraordinarily costly. Still, I invest in it because people will then give me even more money. Asprin, not patented, makes a lot of money.

Also, that village doctor story... well, he says it works, but how can anyone test it? It's a very flimsy proof that we need a patent system. There are millions of village doctors who have "secret" recipes, and the usual thing is, it's bogus. Real doctors tend to actually care about saving lives, and tend to share their knowledge. That's also how they learn in the first place.

Someone's grandfather "invented" a miracle cure? Nah, it's a poor story, highly unlikely, and even if true, so rare that it does not justify the massive abuses that the patenting of medical areas (one example) allows.

I'd much rather a few secret cures (if this is true, which I severely doubt) are lost than entire areas of medicine - malaria, breast cancer, etc. etc. - are patented, causing the end of research in those areas and the illness and death of tens, hundreds of millions.

Patents in medicine kill many, many people, don't misunderstand that. Oh, yes, but we can give some firm a monopoly on Viagra. Big deal.

As for the 12 years... well, drug companies are expert in greenfielding their patents, so they can last much longer than 20 years. Keep patenting small incremental innovations...

Not convinced, sorry.

Re:They can patent that?

[repapetilto]

What I wanted to find out is the annual consumer spending on drugs and compare that to your number of $10 billion So according to this drug companies made 35.9 billion dollars in 2002. Its not exactly the data I wanted but you can figure that money already supplied by the government(medicare, etc) and money "wasted" (would be unnecessary otherwise) on marketing will cancel each other out to some extent. The ultimate point was that people are privately spending tens of billions of dollars a year on patented medicines right now anyway, if we did away with patents and just funneled that into research (via taxes)it could be that everyone ends up paying less for their medicines.

So really patents aren't obviously necessary to the process of drug discovery.

Re:They can patent that?

[jc42]

Better than losing that information forever, right?
Think about it - he or his son or his grandchild dies before that information is transferred. This would mean that this information is lost forever.

Actually, medical researchers have lamented such losses on many occasions. There is ongoing funding of investigation of "folk" medicines, and such studies regularly turn up useful new drugs. But in some cases, the medicines are lost before the investigators can learn about them.

One of the main complaints of these researchers is that previous field researchers, usually botanists and occasionally zoologists, will do species surveys of an area, but fail to record the local people's uses of their local species. Later on, a medical researcher decides to investigate a species for possible medical use (perhaps because it's related to other species that are known to produce useful medicines). It turns out that the local people remember some use that a previous local doctor had made of the species, but that fellow has died, and the current people don't know anything about the details. If the previous botanist had recorded the local medical usage in his notes, the medical investigators might have appeared on the scene earlier, before the local doctor died, and learned of the medicine.

There's a lot of inefficiency in how we handle such things. In this case, the compartmentalization of specialties results in botanists not being concerned with how local people use a species. The only concern is in documenting the species in enough detail to make it identifiable to other botanists, and recording basic info about its habitat. Human use of a plant is Someone Else's Problem.

The above local doctor's story isn't at all unusual, and shows a sort of inefficiency that's quite common: Medicine has been historically organized into local "guilds" that tend to be secretive about their knowledge. This was true in the West until the past couple centuries, and is still part of how Western commercial medicine operates. The fellow's attitude may be quite rational from his viewpoint, since telling others about his cure is likely to result in strangers coming in and ending part of his business. We have a patent system that protects corporations from such losses, but it doesn't work for individuals like this doctor.

We all suffer as a result of such social inefficiencies. But we don't seem to know how to fix the problems. And many people continue to support things like the patent system and corporate secrecy, which mostly just continue the problems (while occasionally making a very few people rich).

Re:They can patent that?

[CowTipperGore]

By allowing patents, we get people like him to divulge his or her information in exchange for protection of their patent, allowing them to make money off from it in a non-secretive fashion, helping society as a whole. Perhaps in theory. In practice, he divulges his information in exchange for being told that Merck already patented something that is written ambiguously enough to preclude him from selling his medicine. Or, he sells his rights to someone for $5,000, who then makes billions marketing it to the world. Meanwhile, the medicine now costs $300 and the villagers can no longer afford it.

What incentive does a patent offer some village shaman? Do you think he's going to setup a pharmaceutical lab in his home and export to the US and EU?

Re:They can patent that?

[Omestes]

Evil is a human emotion. Do you really think corporations have human feelings? Bottom lines are what matters.

Evil is not an emotion. Evil is a social judgment on ones actions, in accords with a value system. Evil, also, can be determined either by motive or effect (depending on what ethical system we are looking at). Thus you setting out to murder a family, but actually curing cancer, can still be evil. Or, you accidentally killing a family while on your way to cure cancer, can be evil.

Though we can, arguably, remove the "social" aspect, and find some basis of what we term good and evil in more biological, or evolutionary, terms.

Reading this, pretty much anything capable of action can be said to be capable of evil. Corporations are capable of action, and thus can do evil. If a corporation can make lots of money by slaughtering babies, I would say this is an evil act by a corporation.

The problem comes from where do we assign blame. I personally think it should be distributed to every member of the organization who had knowledge of the "evil" act.

What a ridiculous waste

[seifried]

What a ridiculous waste of time, money and energy. This is sickening.

This is what happens...

[ulash]

...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.

Re:This is what happens...

[radaos]

There does not seem to be any question of this satellite turning into space debris. From the article...

both parties are "eager to splash the satellite within days".

Re:This is what happens...

[njfuzzy]

It's worth pointing out that Boeing only denied the request to license the patent because SES Americom is suing them over something else. So really this isn't a case of "patents are evil" it is a case of "you reap what you sow".

Also, SES Americom has the option of selling the satellite to someone who might be able to get the license from Boeing. However, they have chosen to "splash" the satellite and collect their insurance money.

Dirty tricks all around by SES Americom, but less so by Boeing.

Re:This is what happens...

[TorKlingberg]

How do you know that SES Americom is doing anything wrong by suing Boeing? If that other suit is valid, then Boeing is abusing the patent system to prevent others from suing them.

Re:This is what happens...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is splashing the satellite a "dirty trick"? It is good business sense. The satellite is insured for the full value that SES would have gained had it stayed in orbit for it's intended 15 years. The fact is, with the lunar fly by, the satellite would have burned so much fuel that it could have only been kept in orbit for four years, and the insurance company would have had to pay off for the other 11 years. Makes much more sense to me to just splash it, collect the insurance, and get back to work.

The Dirty Trick here is using a patent that wouldn't stand a day in court to force a company to stop trying to get judicial resolution for something.

Re:This is what happens...

[Redlum_Jak2]

Perfectly good satellite that can be saved or sold, but being dumped for insurance? Makes no sense.

Not only does it make no sense, it sounds like insurance fraud.

if I have a fire, but I ask the fire department to stop putting out the fire, then I shouldn't get the insurance money.

SES had a launch failure, but they have a perfectly good option for recovering the use of the satellite themselves or selling it and letting someone else move it to a stable orbit. Therefore it's insurance fraud and they shouldn't collect the full value of the satellite.

Abandon patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we just abandon the whole patent system?

Re:why don't they just

[seifried]

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.

Re:why don't they just

[Detritus]

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.

Satellite to Earth:

[Ihlosi]

Send more lawyers !

Jurisdiction?

[Kooshman]

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.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally. Set up a shell company abroad, sell the satellite for 1 dollar to it, that company can fix the problem outside of the ridiculous patent, then sell the satellite back to SES.

How much did the satellite cost to build and launch? Presumably nowhere near $50m, and the sunk design cost can be reused.

Someone should tell the insurance company that the satellite is savable.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the patent is "valid", what jurisdiction would it have in space? None, I'm sure. So all SES Americom would have to do is relocate themselves into geosynchronous orbit, and Bob's your uncle!

Seriously though, from TFA:

Industry sources have told SpaceDaily that the patent is regarded as legal "trite", as basic physics has been rebranded as a "process", and that the patent wouldn't stand up to any significant level of court scrutiny and was only registered at the time as "the patent office was incompetent when it came to space matters".

So, it's a moot point. We can't really be sure why SES Americom isn't pursuing this. For all we know, they're confident they'd win---but it might screw their chances for a reasonable settlement on their other suit against Boeing.

Or, maybe, the satellite would have crashed into the sea by the time they got a resolution.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[Hellcom]

Likely jurisdiction would fall under wherever the owner of the satellite is.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[Loke the Dog]

It's basically the same as international waters, it depends on what flag you're flying. The owner is american, and that means the satellite is a tiny part of america. Thus, american patents apply to it.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[Oktober Sunset]

And if they did it, how would Boeing find out, or prove it?

Surly Boeing doesn't have the ability to track someone else's satellite where ever it is, they could sneak it round, do the flyby, and get it in the right orbit when Boeing aren't looking. What are Boeing going to do, sue them for some shit that happened in space that they can't prove?

Tho given the US legal stsyem, that's still not 100% certain. T totaly avoid any attempt to sue them, they could just start a small holding company in some country that Boeing doesn't have a patent, sell the satellite to the holding company, they do the manoeuvre, then buy it back. Then the holding company liquidates itself. Boeing can't do shit.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[ringmaster_j]

I understood space to be a legal no-man's land

Kind of, but not really. The laws of space are so unclear that a lot of people assume that you can do anything you want there, and no one can stop you because it simply isn't Earth. Alas, this isn't the case. SES Americom is an American and, indeed, Earth-based company, and as such is bound by both American and international law, including those regarding patents.

If I were Boeing's lawyers, I'd argue it this way: Boeing has the patent in America. SES (presumably) operates its satellites from America. All the work being done in order to use the patent is being done in America (i.e. reading the procedure, making the calculations, sending directions to the satellite). Ergo, the patent is being used in America, even if the end result of the patent (the 'lunar flyby process') is in space.

What one has to remember is that space is actually pretty tightly bound by national laws. Because no one can say who it belongs to, the Americans just treat it like it's part of America, and the Russians like it's part of Russia. Out of convenience, American companies operating in space are subject to American law, and those of their home states. This is the de facto position, of course, and de jure there really are no laws. Your activities in space are, for legal purposes, domestic activities because you rarely actually act in space; you send orders to objects that tell them to take actions. Even if you were to somehow act illegally in space, if you returned to America you'd be subject to American law, under federal jurisdiction.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[kirthn]

euhmm..to start, there is a difference of belonging to the US governement (as in warshps?) and commercial fleet ...furthermore....you put the focus on the satellite here, instead of the "controllable" exterior forces....like gravity ;)

Re:Jurisdiction?

[rah1420]

In space, no one can hear lawyers scream.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[Richard Kirk]

This is not really about patents, but two companies having a scrap and using whatever tools come to hand. However, it does give some insights into the wonderful and wacky world of US patent law.

The internaltional patent treaties require symmetrical rights across internaltional boundaries for the signatories, even though the patent laws of the signatories may not be the same. If a patent can cover something in country A, and cannot in country B, then within country B there is no infringement of that which cannot be patented.

In Europe, for example, we cannot patent business practices, and software patents are being challenged. We canot patent either of these, which also means we cannot apply for a US patent even though the US patent would be valid.

Consequently, an infringement of a US patent has to be found on US soil. Once a case has been found, then the lawysers can ask for (and get) damages that include losses of sales abroad. But without an infringement on US soil, the game doesn't start.

If the Boeing patent was properly worded, then infringement would cover building a craft that could do the patented process, or issuing instructions for the patented process. As the craft was not designed to do this, then SES Americom might get around this by having someone in Europe issue the signals.

Unfortunately, in such cases, neither side in a patent case is likely to get their costs back, so it is often easier to roll over then fight, particularly when one company is smaller than another.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[h4rm0ny]

This requires more testing. Send lawyers and rockets, now.

patent's are only national

[kirthn]

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??

Re:patent's are only national

[Anonymous Coward]

The advantage of this would be that, somewhere in the universe, there's likely to be prior art for just about any invention that's even remotely useful, so bye, bye, patents.

Jurisdiction?

[countach]

Even if the patent is "valid", what jurisdiction would it have in space?

Not yours. Go home and cry about it.

[pla]

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.

Please read whole story before writing summary

[jmdc]

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".

Re:Please read whole story before writing summary

[BadAnalogyGuy]

splash the satellite

That's a euphemism for having sex with a pregnant woman. Well, it is now.

Re:Please read whole story before writing summary

[Digestromath]

You've got it all wrong!

'Splashing the satellite' is having wild and poorly aimed sex with a woman, while her uglier and less popular sister is in an uncomfortably close orbit.

Lunar flyby to fix geostationary orbit problem?

[khayman80]

Patent issues aside, I'm interested in the maneuver they want to perform. As far as I can tell, the satellite is slightly below geostationary orbit (36,000 km up, if memory serves) and they want to use a "lunar flyby" maneuver to get the satellite up to the Clarke orbit.

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?

Re:Lunar flyby to fix geostationary orbit problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17659402

Re:Lunar flyby to fix geostationary orbit problem?

[njfuzzy]

Getting into a specific orbit isn't just a matter of reaching a certain altitude. It's a matter of reaching it with the right vector-- you have to be going the right speed or its not an orbit, it's called "falling".

Re:Lunar flyby to fix geostationary orbit problem?

[khayman80]

Mod parent down. I just looked at the links provided by another poster in this thread, and realized I misread the description of this "lunar flyby" maneuver. It isn't just a resonance, it's an orbital transfer that literally involves a close pass by the moon. The maneuver is useful (I think) to regularize orbits that are both very eccentric and have high inclinations. A high eccentricity orbit can have its apogee (farthest point on the orbit) shifted with little delta-V required if the rocket burn is applied at perigee (closest point to earth along orbit). By doing this, the apogee can be shifted close to the moon, and lunar gravity can very efficiently (compared to a brute force burn) shift the inclination of the orbit.

I wonder if the satellite is faulty...

[Keramos]

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.

Who else didn't know about this?

[dotmax]

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.

Re:why don't they just

[mcvos]

license the patent from boeing? Because invoking their insurance is cheaper than dropping the lawsuit. How's that for fucked up system?

Re:method patent

[foobsr]

ski jump instructions

Time to again draw attention to us patent 6368227: "A method of swing on a swing is disclosed, in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side to side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other."
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_patent_number:6368227

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? Einstein

CC.

Re:why don't they just

[Smidge204]

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=

Re:Patent Number.....

[AliasMarlowe]

It could be 6,116,545 with abstract:
"A method is provided for using a lunar flyby maneuver to transfer a satellite from a quasi-geosynchronous transfer orbit having a high inclination to a final geosynchronous orbit having a low inclination. The invention may be used to take the inclination of a final geosynchronous orbit of a satellite to zero, resulting in a geostationary orbit, provided that the satellite is launched in March or September."
Alternatively, it might be 6,149,103 which does not have the March/September dependency.

Both of these patents were originally assigned to Hughes. Boeing and GM own nearly all of what was Hughes, and Boeing got the space and satellite parts (including bits via Raytheon as an intermediate owner).

Re:Another indication of how broken it all is

[JasterBobaMereel]

The patent system is broken... we need to fix it

1) Only allow patents on processes not things
2) Only allow patents on processes people can prove they invented (not as now that no-one has yet proved they didn't)
3) Force people to licence patents (i.e. anyone can use it for a fee) and restrict the fee charged so they cannot bury it or skew the market

here's the lunar flyby trajectory

[ChrisCampbell47]

I remember when they pulled off that lunar flyby method to save the satellite. It was May 1998 and the AsiaSat 3 launch had been presumed a complete failure, just like AMC-14 this time. The lunar flyby option uses the satellite's own fuel (instead of a booster) to slowly, over weeks, nudge the satellite's apogee further out until it reached the moon's orbit. It flew by the moon as the moon itself was flying around the earth, and the result was that the moon's gravity pulled the satellite in the right direction to get it going towards a useful GEO orbit.

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.

Wow

[setrops]

Unbelievable! Wouldn't Douglas Adams's process on falling and missing the ground be considered as prior art?

What are 1000 patent lawyers...

[camperdave]

What are 1000 patent lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

... a waste of perfectly good ocean floor.

Doesn't add up

[evilviper]

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.

"the patent office was incompetent when it came to

[Jerry]

"the patent office was incompetent when it came to space matters".

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.

You MORONS.

[MikShapi]

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..."

Re:You MORONS.

[h4rm0ny]

with an individual of the opposing sex..."

Limit your profits, why don't you?

Re:You MORONS.

[justthisdude]

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..." After all the arguments over Homosexuality being inborn or a choice, it turns out it is just a work-around to avoid patent infringement!

Re:why don't they just

[tomhudson]

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%.

Re:method patent

[rhendershot]

This had to be a joke, thought I.

It isn't. Here's the USPTO page. OMG...

Patent Granted: Tarzan Swinging

Lastly, it should be noted that because pulling alternately on one chain and then the other resembles in some measure the movements one would use to swing from vines in a dense jungle forest, the swinging method of the present invention may be referred to by the present inventor and his sister as "Tarzan" swinging. The user may even choose to produce a Tarzan-type yell while swinging in the manner described, which more accurately replicates swinging on vines in a dense jungle forest. Actual jungle forestry is not required.

Licenses are available from the inventor upon request.

Flamebait article

[slashbart]

I know I'm not supposed to, but I actually skimmed the article, and have the following quotes:

In the face of unrelated legal battles between the current patent owner Boeing and the satellite's owner SES Americom - any efforts to salvage AMC-14 have been cast aside.

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.

Industry sources have told SpaceDaily that the patent is regarded as legal "trite", as basic physics has been rebranded as a "process", and that the patent wouldn't stand up to any significant level of court scrutiny and was only registered at the time as "the patent office was incompetent when it came to space matters".

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.

Separately, another company has approached the insurers about buying the spacecraft for salvage using the lunar flyby option. Initially, the insurers were surprised as they had no knowledge of this option and suggested that they contact SES Americom directly.

Dear Sir,

[wild_berry]

The real purpose of patents is to make money for patent holders, patent experts, and patent lawyers. Anyone who says differently is lying or ignorant. Period.

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?

Re:why don't they just

[houghi]

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.

Hopes of Insurance Payout

[Perl-Pusher]

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.

Re:Hopes of Insurance Payout

[Reziac]

Hmm... I think you may have nailed it. Satellite goes down due to some engineering mistake, insurance company won't pay cuz it's our own damn fault. Satellite goes down due to "they won't *let* us fix it", insurance pays, then insurance company sues the patent holder. -- It would be very interesting to get a look at their insurance contract.

Re:method patent

[SharpFang]

Wouldn't Tarzan be a prior art?

Why is insurance paying?

[ktappe]

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.

How this is done with pretty pictures...

[Lumpy]

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.

pharma wants no cure - it wants subscription

[1800maxim]

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.

Re:method patent

[jank1887]

I heard that the guy who submitted that patent did so deliberately to demonstrate the absurdity of the patent system. Iirc, he was a lawyer, possibly a patent attorney.

Re:method patent

[GaryPatterson]

I recall a few years ago a patent lawyer here in Australia managed to patent a circular device for assisting motion.

He then went public and said that the system was so broken he patented the wheel.

Yay to the patent examiners.