Follow Me

Subscribe via E-mail

Your email:

Caveat Emptor

We want you to hear directly from our research analysts.  We want you to read their perspectives.  We want you to experience the humor and experiences of their lives.  Therefore, our blog entries represent their views, perspectives and opinions.  These may or may not be consistent with the opinions of the management of Global Patent Solutions.    We deal only in facts when producing research reports.  But this Blog is a place for opinion and viewpoints.  We'd love to hear your opinion.  We, too, realize that you may not be speaking on behalf of your whole company, either, when you share your thoughts.  We want to hear them anyway.  We value YOUR opinion. Please share it with us here.

Latest Posts

Posts by category

Global Patent Solutions Blog

Current Articles | RSS Feed RSS Feed

Another First for the Wright Brothers: Patents Take Flight in May

Posted by Robb Evans on Sun, May 22, 2011 @ 10:29 PM
  
  
  
  
  
Add to delicious  delicious  
  
  

Celebrating May the Wright Way

On May 22, 1906 the U.S. Patent Office granted Wilbur and Orville Wright patent No. 821,393, for a flying machine. Tested nearly three years earlier on the beach of North Carolina, their design was unlike any other and allowed the brothers to take off on the world’s first powered and controlled flight. It may have only lasted twelve seconds, but it made a wide footprint in flight history.

It wasn’t until 1908, however, that the Wright brothers showed off their creation. Wilbur Wright astonished spectators in France when he took the Wright Flyer up into the skies and circled the clouds for a record breaking two hours and eighteen minutes. It also won him a prize of 20,000 francs.

The self-taught engineers continued on to form their own aviation business, the Wright Company. However, even with new designs and creative ambition, American airplane companies began rapidly losing their technological edge to the Europeans.

By 1912, the Wright Company was falling even further behind, and Wilbur focused the majority of his efforts on protecting the company’s patent rights, contracting typhoid in the process. Orville sold the company in 1915, shortly after his brother’s death.

Orville went on to become one of the original members of the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics, currently known as NASA. Today, the organization continues to celebrate the Wright brothers' passion, and works to develop fresh and original ways to improve aircraft performance and technology.

- S.E.

 
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments

There are no comments on this article.
Comments have been closed for this article.

Six Degrees Blog Series

As we all may have noticed at some point there is a list of references cited adorning the face of every US patent.  Utilizing these lists of references, patents can be connected to other patents through the references cited on their own face, as well as the instances where the patent is cited on a subsequent patent’s face.   By connecting patents in this manner a network begins to form and begs the question: How many steps would it take to connect any patent with any other patent? 

So, starting with any patent where would we find ourselves after 6 steps through the references cited network?

We're sharing our path, but feel free to follow your own path of patent connection intrigue and share it in the comments section below.

Have a suggestion for an inventor or invention you would like to see in the Six Degrees post? Share that in the comments too!

Six Degrees of Christie Brinkley

Six Degrees of the Floppy Disk

Six Degrees of Steve Wozniak

Six Degrees of Astroturf

Six Degrees of the Calculator Wristwatch

 

Six Degrees of Eddie Van Halen

Six Degrees of the Roomba - Patent on a Rotten Tomato of an Idea?

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (the inventor)

Six Degrees of the iPhone

Six Degrees of Michael Jackson - Patent on the Moonwalk?

Computer Mouse Patent -- A Bozo of an Idea?

Six Degrees of Walt Disney

6 Degrees of the Microwave - Patents on Heart Stoppers and Starters

Six Degrees of Les Paul -- Patents on Electric Guitars & Baby-Rockers

Patent Search: 6 Degrees of the Post-It Note

Six Degrees: Patents from Head to Toe...er... From Toe to Head

 

Blogs on Blogs

Patent Research Humor

Patent Facts & Figures

Views on Patent Search