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1 Attachment(s)
I hold a aircraft related Design Patent... In general, a Design Patent
protects the appearance of an item regardless of how it works, whereas
a Utility Patent protects the way an item works regardless of what it
looks like... Broadly speaking Copyright can be used for almost any
artistic or written creation... either way I recommend Nolo's book...
be sure to buy the most up to date version due to changes to our laws...
Attachment 8378
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Design patent is more than "how it looks." It covers specific ornamentations. You can get a design patent, but what it protects is quite limited in scope.
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Curtiss: It's a whole new thing - I call it the aileron. The Wright Brothers can pound sand.
Wright Brothers: It's the same thing we did with wing warping.
(Lawyers go crazy)
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3 Attachment(s)
I'm not a Lawyer but as an inventor and Patent holder myself I'm in the Wrights corner...
In 1903 the Wrights applied for a patent not chiefly on wing warping
but more broadly to provide means for maintaining or restoring the
equilibrium or lateral balance of the apparatus...
Quote:
"The object of our invention are to provide means for maintaining or
restoring the equilibrium or lateral balance of the apparatus, to
provide means for guiding the machine both vertically and horizontally
and to provide a structure combining lightness, strength, convenience
of construction, and certain other advantages which will hereinafter
appear."
1906 Patent 821,393 Flying Machine was awarded to the Wrights...
The patent's importance lies in its claim of a new and useful method
of controlling a flying machine, powered or not. The technique of
wing-warping is described, but the patent explicitly states that other
methods instead of wing-warping could be used for adjusting the outer
portions of a machine's wings to different angles on the right and
left sides to achieve lateral roll control.The concept of lateral
control was basic to nearly all airplane designs. Without it they
generally could not be easily or safely controlled in flight.
Between 1904 and 1907 the Wright Brothers were the *only* humans on
this planet up in the air flying on a daily bases... they were up to
the duration of 1.2 hours and could fly figure 8s... true masters of 3
axis control flight which inspired Curtiss to have a go...
1908 Curtiss aileron equipped June Bug flew 5,080 ft in a straight
line to win the Scientific American Trophy and its $2,500 prize
In 1908, the Wrights warned Glenn Curtiss not to infringe their patent
by profiting from flying or selling aircraft that used ailerons
(French for little wing) because they believed whether lateral balance
was by means of wing warp or hinged aileron it was covered by their
broad interpretation. US courts initially ruled in favor of the
Wrights that ailerons were covered by their Patent...
Glen Curtiss holds 72 patents... one champions the aileron...
1909 Bleriot bought into the Wright Brothers lateral control patent
and crossed the English channel with his model 11 winning a £1,000
(equivalent to £115,000 in 2018) prize awarded by the Daily Mail.
Wright Patent that opended the world to the possibility of control flight...
Attachment 8382
1904 Wright Flyer Huffman Prairie...
Attachment 8383
1908 aileron equipped June Bug...
Attachment 8384
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I have the Wright Brothers work in ebook form as well as their licensing of the Hispano-Suiza V-8. What you inspired me to seach out is "Birdflight as a basis of Aviation" by their hero Otto Lilienthal. It has their gliders in the preface and then what I wanted for my own work with derivatives and equations, actual analysis of how much work it takes for a bird to fly. As the flurry of activity at Douglas Long Beach died down in the early 70's I tried to sell my house and move to Goettingen, Germany and study at a Hochschule or Universität for an advanced degree just to experience the atmosphere that Euler, and Bernoulli and Lomenosov created in. That was then looking for fundamentals. Now I am here for a more practical form.