quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

What?! The Wright brothers actually defended their patents? The nerve of those dirty bastards.

“Unable to secure a monopoly they subsequently adjusted their legal strategy suing foreign and domestic aviators and companies, especially another U.S. aviation pioneer, Glenn Curtiss, in an attempt to collect licensing fees. Of the nine suits brought by them and three against them, the Wright brothers eventually won every case in U.S. courts.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik..._brothers_patent_war

Actually, no. Do a little more research beyond reading wikipedia.

Anyone who knows much about the Bishop's boy's and aviation history knows exactly what the Wrights did to early aviation, and how far and how long they set it back with their legal assaults. A good place to start is with a book by the same name, The Bishop's Boys.

The Wrights law suits, their attempt to monopolize aviation, flight training, and overpriced attempt to sell their product ultimately cost them, and the industry. The rest of the world leapt forward, until by the time the US entered WWI, the US was in last place with products and aviation technology.

The Wrights were terrible businessmen. Initially they refused to let anyone see their product, and tried to sell it sight unseen, without success, in the US and abroad. No takers. When they did sell, they produced their 1903 at the modern equivalent of just shy of a million dollars a pop, while other makers produced much better aircraft for considerably less, using more advanced technology.

While the Wrights benefitted from constant contact with Octave Chanute and used the works of numerous other aviation pioneers, they kept all their own findings secret. As noted before, while wing warping was a terrible way to effect control, the use of the ailerson by Glen Curtiss (and every other manufacturer thereafter) made control easier, safer, and training and learning faster. The Wrights secrecy, patent wars, and law suits left them behind and ultimately ran them out of business.

The wrights were so wrapped into their fight that the world moved ahead around them. The Wrights won their law suit against Curtis, who by that time was much more successful than they. Wilbur broke under the strain, then died of Typhoid. He never saw the settlement. A year after the settlement, Orville sold the company, and ironically, it ultimately merged with and was absorbed by Glen Curtis company, to become Curtis-Wright.

The wrights were far from the first to fly, and their claim of first powered flight was not established at the time (the first recognition, at the Smithsonian, was garnered by extortion, when they withheld their aircraft until the Smithsonian granted that recognition. Technically, their status is first in controlled, heavier than air, powered flight. Any of those three elements alone, were not their achievement, and they key to their flights, the development and construction of their engine, wasn't their success, but that of Charles Taylor, who died in near obcurity and is scarcely known except to those who know aviation history. Equally ironic is that while the Wright company faltered under the Wrights, when it became Wright-Martin at the conclusion of the Wright's lawsuit against Curtis in 1914 (company sold in 1915), they became known for engine production.

The irony was that the Wrights had the monopoly initially on powered, heavier than air, controlled flight; they had the industry in the palm of their hand, and shot that opportunity with their greed, their secrecy, and their legal wranglings, as well as the overpricing of their product. The world at large considered them frauds, especially with others like Alberto Santos-Dumont, Bleriot, Curtis, and a number of others making public open displays of controlled, powered, heavier than air flight. The Wrights hid their flights in an attempt to protect their work, and the world bypassed them. In the space of a few short years (including three years in which the Wrights grounded their aircraft and hid it, while choosing instead to file law suits), the Wrights were left in the dust.

In 1914, when their law suit was settled, Orville could have owned the industry again, but blew it then, too.

The Wrights set a precedent for unintended consequences that lasted for a century to come, in patent trolling. In their effort, they abandoned research and development, and their product became obsolete, and fell by the wayside.

US aviation had been so damaged and set back by the patent wars and the Wrights legal wranging that the US couldn't field an aircraft at the outset of WWI. The US was in last place in the aviation race. The Wrights had traveled around the world trying to sue nearly every big name in aviation, mostly losing internationally, with varied results in the US, but at the cost of progress and technology in the US at at that point, the Wrights were considered a joke on the international aviation scene, and the US wasn't considered a player.

The simple fact is that while the Wrights had a personal success in their efforts in Ohio and at Kittyhawk, they hid it and kept it secrect. When others demanded proof, they referred to locals as witnesses who might have seen something, while the rest of the world used public displays to verify aviation acomplishments. The Wrights had one brief moment of success and set back early aviation in the US by almost two decades.

The Wrights are referred to as the "fathers of flight" and many these days think of them that way; they're not. Their research and their effort was an important achievement, but it largely ended there for them, and most of their effort thereafter did little but hold back aviation and drive the US into last place. Set aside the hero worship and research a little real history.

https://www.forbes.com/2003/11...html?sh=18c054c31bda

https://time.com/4143574/wrigh...ers-patent-trolling/