Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
It seems possible that the Wrights went first to the U.S. War
Department specifically because they were U.S. citizens, and did not
feel it would have been appropriate, feasible, right, or (fill in
blank) to sell their technology overseas before the U.S. military adopted it.
They said that. They said they felt they should give their own War
Department first dibs, as it were. That's what they told Col. Capper
during his visit. However, they continued negotiations with the
British, French and German militaries, and in 1908 and 1909 they
concluded contracts the French, Germans and others, but the contract
with the British War Office got tangled up in politics and a large
cast of colorful Victorian characters such as C. S. Rolls, R. B.
Haldane, Lord Northcliffe, Robert Baden-Powell (the founder of the
boy scouts), Maxim and S. F. Cody, a transplanted American who
emulated and resembled "Buffalo Bill" Cody. It is a complicated
story. I think they got their money in the end, but I don't recall
the details. I should re-read Gollin.
It was obvious to everyone that other nations would soon get the
technology. The Wrights were granted a patent that explained all the
details, as any patent must do to be valid. See:
<http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/WrightUSPatent/WrightPatent.html>http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/WrightUSPatent/WrightPatent.html
Note that it does not include an engine, only the method of
controlling the airplane.
The Wrights overestimated the difficulty of replicating their work
from the patent. They thought they could maintain a technical lead
over competition for years, but it lasted only about 6 months.
There is another aspect of this I was not aware of when I wrote the
Infinite Energy article. Apparently the patent laws were different in
1903, and disclosure of pending patent information was more likely to
result in the loss of the right to patent. It wasn't enough to file
for patent. That explains their secrecy. It seems excessive by modern
standards, but for the most part they were following the advise of
their patent lawyer, Toulmin, who was one of the best in the business.
They initially filed their own patent, which the P.O. rejected.
Crouch explains why:
"For more than fifty years the Patent Office had received a stream of
applications for flying machines. In the early 1890s, officials
decided that such 'nuisance' applications would be summarily
dismissed unless the applicant could demonstrate that his machine had
actually flown. The Wrights knew that they could fly; it did not
occur to them that a harried bureaucrat might have difficulty
recognizing that fact on the basis of a simple patent application. . . ."
Does that sound familiar?
In the case of cold fusion, the Patent Office established a policy of
rejecting all applications summarily on June 5, 1989. They do not
make exceptions for people who can prove the device works. Along with
the rejection letter they send a package of information that includes
copies of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal articles saying
that cold fusion does not exist.
(I have a copy of the June 5, 1989 memo, which was leaked. I saw the
rejection letters at the U. Utah special collection library and in
the papers belonging to researcher.)
As I see it, the Patent Office policy towards airplanes in 1903 was
reasonable. Even looking at the 1906 patent drafted by Toulmin, I do
not suppose that an educated engineer could have judged that the
thing would work. So the Patent Office was acting with due diligence
and a three-year delay was reasonable. The Patent Office policy with
regard to cold fusion, in force from from 1989 to the present, is unreasonable!
Once again, we see that the Wrights did not adequately take into
account the perceptions of the people they were dealing with at the
Patent Office. They soon realized they needed help, and hired
Toulmin. This kind of problem is all too common with cold fusion
researchers, except that they seldom fix the problem.
The Wrights misreading of other people was perhaps partly due to the
mindset of provincial businessmen, who were used to personal contacts
and honesty by reputation. Dayton was a small town by modern
standards. The Wrights had been dealing with machine shops, suppliers
and others in their bicycle business for many years. They were used
to be treated as honest businessmen and a known quantity. On the
other hand, the people they were soon dealing with -- the Charles
Flint Co. in particular -- were used to selling fleets of battleships
to sovereign nations, and starting up companies such as IBM. So there
was a disconnect.
C. S. Rolls, by the way, was the founder of the Rolls-Royce company,
and one of the first British aviators. He crashed and killed himself
in a Wright airplane in 1910.
- Jed
