
Greed and the Wright Brothers - kanamekun
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/opinion/nocera-greed-and-the-wright-brothers.html
======
asmithmd1
I think the real answer is compulsory licensing of patents.

Congress thought the ownership of something as trivial as a song was so
important they wrote laws to compel songwriters to license the performance of
a song to any and all comers. Have you ever wondered how bands can "cover"
other bands songs? They can because whoever wrote the song is forced by law to
give them a license to perform it.

Patents need to work the same way. Under current law the liabilities for
infringing a patent are completely unbounded. If a potential user of a patent
knew beforehand what the cost of using a patent was, they could make some real
business decisions.

~~~
vbuterin
The first step is to stop using the word "compulsory licensing". Compulsory
licensing sounds like some kind of crazily authoritarian evil government
regulation; if I didn't know what it actually is, and there were no triggers
that convinced me the idea is worth taking an hour of my time to research, I
would imagine I would instinctively oppose it. The language implicitly accepts
that patents are a natural right, and that what it is proposing is an
infringement on that right. In reality, of course, it's a limitation on a
government-granted monopoly. Nobody is being "forced to give a license"; it's
actually the derivative creator who is no longer forced to face unbounded cost
when using something which was patented.

~~~
twic
Maybe it could be called something like "licensing by right" or "right-to-
use", so casting it as a defence of something positive, rather than the
imposition of something negative.

~~~
asmithmd1
"Right-to-use" sounds like something people could get behind.

Congress needs to pass "Right-to-use" patent reform to prevent Saudi oil
companies from buying up patents that increase gas mileage and preventing US
companies from developing them into products.

I don't think this has ever actually happened, but current patent law would
allow it.

------
hyp0
It's so sad, because the Wright Brothers really were innovative. Not just the
control system of planes, but the system of discovering that: they realized
that building and testing a whole aircraft was too time consuming (not to
mention risky), so they made a wind tunnel, and ran years of tests on models.

The first successful man-powered aircraft
([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Condor](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Condor))
also found ways to iterate more quickly.

But, as a creator, I can really empathise with Wilbur Wright's feeling, tragic
and short-sighted though it is: _they_ thought of it; they put all their
blood, sweat and tears into it, for years and years; they were the first to
climb this mountain; therefore, it's _their 's_.

Though it seems more artistic ego than "greed" to me.

------
zachbeane
See also
[http://idlewords.com/2003/12/100_years_of_turbulence.htm](http://idlewords.com/2003/12/100_years_of_turbulence.htm),
by HN-banned author and entrepreneur Maciej Cegłowski.

~~~
flexie
HN-banned? Why? How? By whom? When?

~~~
JanezStupar
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108008)

The whole affair is really sad. Especially due to high quality of Maciej's
blog.

~~~
arjie
Interesting. So that's the story of the origin of lobste.rs.

------
dalek_cannes
> “That is, of course, the irony of the patent system. Without patent
> protection, a competitor can simply replicate an invention and undercut the
> inventor’s price — which necessarily includes all the time and expense of
> research and development — so the incentive to experiment and create is
> severely inhibited. But if innovators such as Glenn Curtiss cannot build on
> the progress of others without paying exorbitantly for the privilege, the
> incentive to continue to experiment and create is similarly inhibited.”

That's not really irony. The patent system exists (or _did_ exist) not to
benefit the inventor, but to provide a mechanism by which he may share it with
other people who want to build on it. The alternative was keeping trade
secrets.

~~~
guelo
This is an oft-repeated lie. The point of patents, as stated in the US
constitution, is to incentivize inventors by giving them a monopoly for a
limited time. It says nothing about disclosure.

Promoting disclosure doesn't make sense anyway since once an invention is
commercialized it can usually be reverse-engineered.

I don't understand where this idea comes from or why people always bring it
up.

~~~
scotty79
> Promoting disclosure doesn't make sense anyway since once an invention is
> commercialized it can usually be reverse-engineered.

The idea is to encourage inventor to disclose details of his invention before
it is successfully commercialized so others can take it into account in their
own ideas and actions. To develop complementary or improved inventions.
Basically not to invent exact same thing twice.

~~~
dllthomas
Have you ever looked at patents to inform your ideas? As slavik81 says that's
legally dangerous, but it's also typically useless.

~~~
scotty79
I didn't say ideas behind patent system worked by any stretch of the
imagination.

~~~
dllthomas
Fair enough!

------
cfontes
Interesting write up about Writght brothers and Santos Dumont.

[http://www.cnet.com/news/were-the-wright-brothers-really-
fir...](http://www.cnet.com/news/were-the-wright-brothers-really-first-not-in-
brazil/)

Disclaimer: I am Brazilian and I learned that Santos Dumont was the first one
when I was little in school.

I just find it interesting and wanted to share, No sides or flame wars.

He was Brazil's Leonardo Da Vinci I guess.

~~~
lotharbot
Likewise, Richard Pearse of New Zealand is sometimes considered the first. He
was able to get airborne in early 1903, but not really able to maneuver.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse)

It's also worth reading about Sir George Cayley, Samuel Pierpont Langley, and
Gustave Whitehead -- all aviation pioneers with some degree of success in the
pre-Wright era.

One of the main accomplishments of the Wright Brothers was that they continued
to improve on those flights over the next several years, putting flight in the
public eye -- their flights in 1908 and 1909 catapulted flight from "something
a few people have claimed, but there's still a lot of skepticism" to
"something everyone realized was really possible".

------
rmason
If you should ever visit Nova Scotia's North island do not miss the Alexander
Graham Bell museum in Baddeck.

Bell employed Glenn Curtiss to work on an airplane which is up in the rafters
of the museum. For whatever reason Bell lost interest in aviation leaving
Glenn Curtiss to launch his own company. The guides spend quite a bit of time
talking about what Curtiss accomplished while he was at Baddeck.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell_National_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell_National_Historic_Site)

~~~
cdr
The Curtiss Museum in the finger lakes area of central New York state is also
very neat. Curtiss was born in Hammondsport on Keuka Lake and spent most of
his life there.

[http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/](http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/)

------
Theodores
On a bicycle the left hand pedal screws in one way and the right hand pedal
screws in the other way. To anyone that has noticed it the reason is obvious -
you don't want the pedals to fall out or work free over time, therefore it is
common sense that the threads are different on each side.

However, there was a time before 1900 when you did not have a left-hand thread
on one of the two pedals on a bicycle. You probably didn't have bearings in
the pedal either and the pedals really could fall out on the one side.

It took the Wright Brothers to see this problem and come up with the solution
of using the left-hand thread. Back then there were two patent offices in the
U.S., one for bicycles and one for everything else. The Wright Brothers were
awarded the patent even though the left hand thread was far from a new
innovation, it was the application of that innovation that was what they could
patent. This really was a must have feature for bicycles but history has this
'invention' as an interesting footnote to the Wright Brothers story, there are
no generally known details as to how they were able to profit from it, which
presumably they were able to do to some extent.

There is also another Wright Bros. patent that comes before that. This is for
some self-oiling hub. Nowadays bicycle hubs are packed with grease and the
last thing you want to do is to oil them. However, once upon a time, oil was
what you used to lubricate bearings, and still was the case with 3-speed
'Sturmey Archer' hub gears up until the 1970's. The Wright Brothers innovation
was to use some bits of felt as seals, this prevented the oil running out when
the bicycle was parked on its side. At that time there were literally hundreds
and hundreds of variations on the humble bicycle hub, plus what we know today
as a ball bearing had actually only been invented thirty years before hand. No
thread sizes were standard so this small bit of engineering was more like home
computers before the IBM PC - nothing compatible and all very new.

Much like how the million and one different home computer variants that
existed during the 1980's died a death as soon as the IBM PC (and clones) took
over, a similar thing happened with bicycles back in the early 1900's. Parts
became standardised, bicycles became mass produced and 'craft' manufacturers
such as the Wright Bros. could not compete on price. It all happened very
quickly, within a short space of time everything ended up being a variant of
the Rover Safety Bicycle with Dunlop tyres.

By the time of the 'Patent Wars' the Wright Brothers were quite experienced at
applying and getting patents. I suspect that there is a lot more to the Wright
Brothers history that needs to be understood, far beyond the potted back-story
I mention here. It is also difficult for us to appreciate their inventions,
because they are laid out before us. For instance the left-hand thread, the
physics going on there are beyond 'well it could work free if the bearings
seized', there is this concept of precession that needed some deep knowledge
to understand. Similarly with the patent for controlling the plane, the Wright
Brothers understood flight at a deeper level and I think they thought there
patents should reflect that knowledge and disregard 'workarounds' such as what
Curtiss came up with.

~~~
logicallee
TL;DR: the wright brothers had a history of patenting special additions to
bicycles, so when the market for craft bicycles dried up due to
standardization of parts, they "pivoted into creating the airplane". :)

fair summary?

------
joe_the_user
It is fascinating how those who begin as "doers" and innovator can end up
having their entire activity controlled by something as inactive and
uninnovative as the legal system?

I wonder if it is the situation of having achieved a palpably fundamental
innovation leaves someone open to thinking that the world owes them success.

~~~
Tloewald
The world is in no way short of people who think the world owes them a living.
Didn't a recent survey show that over half of all programmers think they're
going to be millionaires? Ah yes, invent a better mousetrap and blah blah
blah.

In what way is the legal system not innovative? Sure, it relies on precedent,
but look at the innovative ways precedent is used. The problem isn't lack of
innovation so much as the purposes to which it is put.

~~~
randomdata
_> Didn't a recent survey show that over half of all programmers think they're
going to be millionaires?_

Seems pretty reasonable. Rule of thumb is to save 10% of your income. Median
income of programmers is reported to be $90,000, which is roughly $67,000
after tax in my location. That annual addition compounded at 5% works out to
$900K over the course of a typical career.

And that is just in cash savings. Another rule of thumb is spend 30% of your
income on a home. If you use that to buy, that adds another, say, $400,000 to
your net worth and we should be safely able to assume another $300,000 once
the home is paid for if you redirect those payments into savings.

Add in an earning partner and the numbers get even larger. And while prices
can fluctuate, those numbers have historically gone up, which means decades
from now you will probably be making more than $90K, and your home will
probably be worth more than $400K.

I'm more interested in why half of the programmers surveyed don't think they
will be millionaires. You don't even have to make the median income I proposed
earlier to get there. Quite a bit less will do.

------
throwawaykf05
No, the Wright brothers' patents did not hold up the US aviation industry:

[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2355673](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2355673)

Although the introduction reads something like a conspiracy theory, this paper
does a decent job of providing historical industrial data and references as
evidence that despite the various patents at play, the aviation industry in
the years leading up to and during WW1 was actually doing well.

------
rtb
James Watt also spent much of his time and energy fighting patent battles in a
hope to prevent others from entering the market. Who knows what further
innovations he could have pursued if he hadn't been derailed by that greed. It
looks like this is a recurring problem.

~~~
hackbinary
It was largely Matthew Boulton who fought Watt's patent battles. Edward Bull
worked for Watt and then attempted to rip off Watt's steam engine designs.
Watt's key insight was a separate condenser, which made the steam engine much
more efficient. Watt and Boulton's license fee was 1/3 of the coal saved from
using the Newcomen Engine.

Watt was not commercially successful until he met Boulton, and it is
interesting to note that Watt also faced a patent problem. James Pickard had a
patent for a crank to convert reciprocating motion to rotational power.
Pickard wanted to simply cross license their respective patents, however with
Watt's being significantly more valuable, Watt simply designed an alternate
solution, sun and planet gear.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt)

------
zby
For more examples see:
[http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...](http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm)

And join a Pirate Party of your location!

------
hammadfauz
I just got an insight upon reading this. Patents stand to incentivize the
research and development, the failures that precede innovations. On the other
hand, they hinder research and development that builds on existing technology.

A good middle-ground would be patents being applicable only on rights to
create _products_ based on a technology. Rights for any products based on a
derivative patent belong solely to that patent, with nothing going towards the
'parent' patent.

This encourages the incremental innovation, as well as pushing the original
inventor to continue to improve on their own patent.

For example, let's imagine someone patented a glass bottle as a container for
ketchup. Any glass ketchup bottle makers pay that person. A person examines
that glass bottle, observes that breakage of glass is a problem, and patents a
plastic ketchup bottle. All plastic bottle makers buy their rights from this
person. Glass bottle makers (if any) continue to pay the original patent owner
for their rights. The glass bottle person, improves upon the plastic bottle,
and gets a patent for a squeezable plastic ketchup bottle...You get the idea.

Discuss.

------
WalterBright
Ailerons aren't really conceptually different from wing warping, it just uses
a hinge rather than bending.

------
lotsofmangos
_“That is, of course, the irony of the patent system. Without patent
protection, a competitor can simply replicate an invention and undercut the
inventor’s price — which necessarily includes all the time and expense of
research and development — so the incentive to experiment and create is
severely inhibited. But if innovators such as Glenn Curtiss cannot build on
the progress of others without paying exorbitantly for the privilege, the
incentive to continue to experiment and create is similarly inhibited.”_

I read this and wondered if the patent system could be reformed to have a
standardised rate for all licensees, similar to what is attempted with FRAND
patents, but enforced with teeth across all of them.

------
hyp0
Their pop-over "you've read 5 of your 10 free articles this month" made me
want to read the article more thoroughly, to make sure I didn't waste the
resource/gift, thus increasing my engagement. It's _valuable_.

Seems like an effective enhancement to freemium. The most sincere best
advertising: the thing itself. And if it's not free, how will people know it's
great? How will they develop a taste for it if they've never tasted it?

~~~
rpgmaker
It's just a bullshit limit that gets in the way of my reading. More times than
not I have _not_ read an article just because it's not worth the extra effort.
I know the NYT doesn't care about losing my eyeball in that instance just as I
don't care enough about the article to go the extra mile. It works for both of
us.

------
ghshephard
This was clearly a not-too veiled slam at Apple. Joe Nocera really needs to
get over it. Yes, Steve Jobs lied to him about his health. Yes, he was made to
look like and idiot for repeating those lies. Yes, that was a shitty thing for
Steve to do (Steve Jobs acting like an asshole to someone - woah, shocker).

But seriously, at this point you can't read anything that Joe Nocera writes
without wondering what axe he is going to grind against Apple this time. He
even wrote a glowing review of the universally panned "Haunted Empire", he's
become so blinded by his dislike of Apple. He really needs to find a new
schtick or at least present some more sophisticated nuance.

Also note, Apple isn't suing Samsung over all Tablets/SmartPhones, or all
general methods of building tablets/smartPhones, but very specific elements
that Samsung just ripped off, rather than inventing their own approach.

Microsoft has certainly been able to develop their own Tablets and Phone OS
elements without having to blindly copy the iPhone/iPad - so it's certainly
possible.

~~~
amirmc
It's sufficiently well-veiled that I don't see the link to Apple at all. I
don't know the detailed history you're referring to but if you're determined
to see things through this lens then _everything_ this author writes can be
taken as a snipe at Apple (no matter how stretched). In other words, he'll
never be able to redeem himself in your eyes. Is that reasonable?

~~~
ghshephard
"But if innovators such as Glenn Curtiss cannot build on the progress of
others without paying exorbitantly for the privilege, the incentive to
continue to experiment and create is similarly inhibited.”

Thus, in the story of the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, is a lesson for
our age as well."

That's the link to Apple.

And certainly, partisans can either be blinded by their dislike, or they can
introduce nuance. A good example would be comparing a couple Apple Partisans,
Jim Dalrymple and John Gruber. Dalrymple is like a broken record - He brings
almost zero insight into assessing companies like Blackberry, Android, etc...
Just rants against them.

Gruber has had phases like this, but in the last couple years he's done some
worthwhile reviews of the Windows Phone product line, and has had good things
to say about the Lumina. He's even been more open minded about Microsoft's web
services, and went so far as to appear in a promotional video for
Windows/Microsoft Azure. Gruber is regaining my trust.

Perhaps the critiquing with insight is someone like Siracusa - There is a
writer who can rant against Apple's every conceivable product, decision, and
technology - yet he does so with an overriding rationality that you can
appreciate.

I don't see that rationality any more in Joe Nocera's writing.

------
checker659
If you invented it, you should be allowed to patent it. Especially, if it as
ground breaking as flight would've been. I see no greed there. By that logic,
the writer should head to North Korea and lead the life of a Comrade since the
same could be said about capitalism too.

~~~
jwdunne
Yeah but the Wrights invented a method to solve the lateral instability
problem. They shouldn't be able to patent all solutions to a problem, just the
solution they invented, surely?

~~~
option_greek
But how do they benefit from the fact that they realized lateral instability
is a problem that needs solving to achieve stable flight ?

~~~
saalweachter
My non-informed opinion is that this is a basic science vs invention problem.

The Wright brothers were both inventors designing an invention (an airplane)
and private-sector researchers investigating the basic science of flight.
Their discovery of the problem of lateral instability and its consequences for
flight was a matter of basic science; for it they deserved recognition from
their peers and scientific acclaim. Their invention of a method for
stabilizing flight deserved a patent.

