The Wright brothers patent war centers on the patent that the Wright brothers received for their method of aircraft flight control. They were two Americans who are widely credited with inventing and building the world's first flyable airplane and making the first controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903.
In 1906, the Wrights received a U.S. patent for their method of flight control. In 1909, they sold the patent to the newly-formed Wright Company in return for $100,000 in cash, 40% of the company's stock, and a 10% royalty on all aircraft sold. Investors who contributed $1,000,000 to the company included Cornelius Vanderbilt, Theodore P. Shonts, Allan A. Ryan, and Morton F. Plant.The New York Times, Big men of Finance Back of the Wrights, (1909) That company waged a patent war, initially in an attempt to secure a monopoly on U.S. aircraft manufacturing. Unable to do so, it adjusted its legal strategy by suing foreign and domestic aviators and companies, especially another U.S. aviation pioneer, Glenn Curtiss, in an attempt to collect licensing fees.
In 1910, they won their initial lawsuit against Curtiss, when Federal Judge John Hazel ruled:
Of the nine suits brought by them and three against them, the Wright brothers eventually won every case in U.S. courts.Roland, Alex (foreword by Jimmy Doolittle), Chapter 2: "War Business: A Laboratory and Licensing; Committees and Engines, 1915–1918", in SP-4103: Model Research: The National Advisory Committee For Aeronautics 1915-1958 - Volume 1, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 1983, retrieved December 4, 2017Nocera, Joel (business columnist), Opinion essay: "Greed and the Wright Brothers," April 19, 2014, New York Times (citing Lawrence Goldstone’s new book, Birdmen), retrieved November 12, 2018) Even after Wilbur Wright had died, and Orville Wright had retired in 1916 (selling the rights to their patent to a successor company, the Wright-Martin Corp.), the patent war continued, and even expanded, as other manufacturers launched lawsuits of their own—creating a growing crisis in the U.S. aviation industry.
Many historians believe the patent war stalled development of the U.S. aviation industry,Boyne, Walter J., aviation historian, former director/curator, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, "The Wright Brothers: The Other Side of the Coin", in Flight Journal magazine, as republished on Wings Over Kansas, April 20, 2008, retrieved December 3, 2017Trainor, Sean, "The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of Patent Trolling," December 17, 2015, TIME Magazine, retrieved December 3, 2017Nocera, Joe, op-ed: "Greed and the Wright Brothers,", April 18, 2014, New York Times, retrieved December 3, 2017, quoting Lawrence Goldstone's book Birdmen. but others dispute this claim.Industrial and Corporate Change, Volume 24, Number 1, pp. 1–64 (PDF) Retrieved Jan. 24, 2016 Perhaps as a consequence, airplane development in the United States fell so far behind Europe that in World War I, American pilots were forced to fly European combat aircraft instead.Rumerman, Judy, "The U.S. Aircraft Industry During World War I," 2003, U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, as archived by the American Aviation Historical Society, retrieved December 3, 2017"Evolution of the Department of the Air Force," May 04, 2011, Air Force Historical Support Division, U.S. Air Force, retrieved December 4, 2017, quote:In the end the only American achievement in the field of aircraft production [in World War I] was the Liberty engine. Of the 740 U. S. aircraft at the front in France at the time of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, almost all were European-made.Gropman, Alan, "Aviation at the Start of the First World War," 2003, U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, as archived by the American Aviation Historical Society, retrieved December 3, 2017Feltus, Pamela, "Air Power: United States Participation in World War I," 2003, U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, as archived by the American Aviation Historical Society, retrieved December 3, 2017 After the war began, the U.S. Government pressured the aviation industry to form an organization to share patents."How The Wright Brothers Blew It," Nov 19, 2003, Forbes, retrieved December 3, 2017
Patent During their experiments in 1902 the Wrights succeeded in controlling their glider in all three axes of flight: pitch, roll and yaw. Their breakthrough discovery was the simultaneous use of roll control with wing-warping and yaw control with a rear rudder. A forward elevator controlled pitch. In March 1903 they applied for a patent on their method of control. The application, which they wrote themselves, was rejected. In early 1904, they hired Ohio patent attorney Henry Toulmin, and on May 22, 1906, they were granted US Patent 821,393 for a "Flying Machine". Searchable text at this link: https://catalog.archives.gov/medialive/37/5249/2524937/content/dc-metro/rg-241/1122319/Box-8A/NAID-2524937.pdf
The patent's importance lies in its claim of a new and useful method of controlling a flying machine, powered or not. The technique of wing-warping is described, but the patent explicitly states that it covers "any construction" for adjusting the outer portions of a machine's wings to different angles on the right and left sides to achieve lateral roll control.Roland, Alex (foreword by Jimmy Doolittle), Chapter 2: "War Business: A Laboratory and Licensing; Committees and Engines, 1915–1918", in SP-4103: Model Research: The National Advisory Committee For Aeronautics 1915-1958 - Volume 1, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 1983, retrieved December 4, 2017 Court decisions stated that devices like ailerons, which would eventually become the most common method, were included under the patent. The concept of lateral control became essential to successful flight, used by nearly all airplane designs with the exception of some types of ultralight aircraft."Training Guide for Weight-Shift Ultralights, Experimental Aircraft Association, retrieved December 3, 2017Berger, Alain-Yves and Norman Burr, Ultralight and Microlight Aircraft of the World: Bk. 1, 1983, Haynes Manuals, Inc.
Letters that Wilbur Wright wrote to Octave Chanute in January 1910 offer a glimpse into the Wrights' feeling about their proprietary work:
"It is not disputed that every person who is using this system today owes it to us and to us alone. The French aviators freely admit it." In another letter Wilbur said: "It is our view that morally the world owes its almost universal use of our system of lateral control entirely to us. It is also our opinion that legally it owes it to us."
The broad protection intended by this patent succeeded when the Wrights won patent infringement lawsuits against Glenn Curtiss and other early aviators who used ailerons to emulate lateral control described in the patent and demonstrated by the Wrights in their 1908 public flights. U.S. courts decided that ailerons were also covered by the patent.
Patent war Wilbur Wright Orville Wright Glenn Curtiss
Soon after the Wright brothers demonstrated their airplane, numerous others involved in similar efforts at the time sought to gain credit for their achievements, whether justified or not. As noted in the New York Times in 1910, "a highly significant fact that, until the Wright brothers succeeded, all attempts with heavier-than-air machines were dismal failures, but since they showed that the thing could be done everybody seems to be able to do it." This competition quickly devolved into a patent war including 12 major lawsuits, extensive media coverage and a secret effort by Glenn Curtiss and the Smithsonian Institution to discredit the Wright brothers.
In 1908, the Wrights warned Glenn Curtiss not to infringe their patent by profiting from flying or selling aircraft that used ailerons. Curtiss refused to pay license fees to the Wrights and sold an airplane to the Aeronautic Society of New York in 1909. The Wrights filed a lawsuit, beginning a years-long legal conflict.
They also sued foreign aviators who flew at U.S. exhibitions, including the leading French aviator Louis Paulhan. The Curtiss people derisively suggested that if someone jumped in the air and waved his arms, the Wrights would sue. Retrieved from Web Archive July 29, 2012.
European companies, which owned foreign patents the Wrights obtained and licensed to them, sued manufacturers in their countries. The European lawsuits were only partly successful. Despite a pro-Wright ruling in France, legal maneuvering dragged on until the patent expired in 1917. A German court ruled the patent not valid due to prior disclosure in speeches by Wilbur Wright in 1901 and Octave Chanute in 1903.
In the U.S. the Wrights made an agreement with the Aero Club of America to license airshows which the Club approved, freeing participating pilots from a legal threat. Promoters of approved shows paid fees to the Wrights.
The Wright brothers won their initial case against Curtiss in February 1913, but the decision was appealed.The Wright Company vs. The Herring-Curtiss Company and Glenn H. Curtiss United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit The brothers wrote to Samuel F Cody in the UK, making a claim that he had infringed their patents but Cody stated that he had used wing-warping on his man-carrying kites before their flights.
The Wrights' preoccupation with the legal issue hindered their development of new aircraft designs, and by 1910 Wright aircraft were inferior to those made by other firms in Europe. Aviation development in the U.S. was suppressed to such an extent that, when the country entered World War I, no acceptable American-designed aircraft were available, and U.S. forces were compelled to use French airplanes.
This claim has been disputed by researchers Katznelson and Howells, who assert that before World War I "aircraft manufacturers faced no patent barriers." Contemporary and respected observers also supported the Wright brothers. In April 1910 the Christian Science Monitor wrote, "The insistence of Professor Bell upon his rights did not retard the growth in the use of the telephone. Thomas Edison's numerous suits for protection of his inventions have not kept any of them out of the market".
In January 1914, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in favor of the Wrights against the Curtiss company, which continued to avoid penalties through legal tactics.
In light of these setbacks and to discredit the Wright brothers, Glenn Curtiss in 1914 helped the head of the Smithsonian, Charles Doolittle Walcott, secretly make major modifications to a failed aeroplane built in 1903 by Professor Samuel Langley to make it appear able to fly. After the flight demonstrations, Walcott ordered the Langley machine be restored to its 1903 condition to cover up the deception before it was put on display. It took until 1928 for the Smithsonian Board of Regents to pass a resolution acknowledging that the Wright brothers deserved the credit for "the first successful flight with a power-propelled heavier-than-air machine carrying a man."