--- title: The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of Flight—and Patent Trolling description: How two trailblazing aviators nearly ruined American aviation canonical: https://time.com/4143574/wright-brothers-patent-trolling/ author: Sean Trainor article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-17T14:30:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:46.772Z article:section: History og:title: The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of Flight—and Patent Trolling og:description: How two trailblazing aviators nearly ruined American aviation og:url: https://time.com/4143574/wright-brothers-patent-trolling/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f08890e05789707/6988756c524fc030fcdf5ef8/the-wright-brothers-orville-wilbur-portraits.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2899 og:image:height: 1631 og:image:alt: the-wright-brothers-orville-wilbur-portraits og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of Flight—and Patent Trolling twitter:description: How two trailblazing aviators nearly ruined American aviation twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f08890e05789707/6988756c524fc030fcdf5ef8/the-wright-brothers-orville-wilbur-portraits.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of Patent Trolling > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Sean Trainor](https://time.com/author/sean-trainor/) ## Sean Trainor Dec 17, 2015 2:30 PM UTC  Dry plate, glass negatives from 1905 of Orville Wright at age 34 and Wilbur Wright at 38. Dry plate, glass negatives from 1905 of Orville Wright at age 34 and Wilbur Wright at 38. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division by [Sean Trainor](https://time.com/author/sean-trainor/) ## Sean Trainor Dec 17, 2015 2:30 PM UTC On this date in 1903, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made [what many consider the world’s first successful heavier-than-air flight](http://nation.time.com/2013/11/23/the-unlikely-fight-over-first-in-flight/). The flight catapulted the brothers and their machine, [the Wright Flyer](http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm%5FA19610048000), into history books. It also propelled them, over the decade to come, into courtrooms throughout Europe and North America. In the courts, the Wright brothers waged a prolonged, embarrassing and largely unsuccessful battle against other early aviators over who owned the aeronautical principles that made flight possible. Citing [a 1906 patent for their flying machine](http://www.libraries.wright.edu/special/wright%5Fbrothers/patents/821393.pdf), the Wrights claimed these principles as their own and charged their competitors with intellectual property theft. Fighting back in court, the Wrights’ competitors claimed the theory behind the machines as the common property of humanity and argued that the Wrights’ patent pertained only to the mechanics of their airplane itself. In waging this battle, the Wrights proved themselves more than pioneers in aviation. They also proved themselves pioneers of what’s sometimes known as patent trolling: the controversial modern practice of suing competitors for infringements that fall beyond the scope of one’s patent. Their legacy, therefore, is one of litigiousness and obstruction, as well as brilliance and innovation. Advancing aeronautics by leaps and bounds in the first years of the 20th century, [Orville and Wilbur Wright squandered their talents and energies – and those of their most gifted rivals](http://www.amazon.com/Birdmen-Wright-Brothers-Curtiss-Control/dp/0345538056) – in a period of legal wrangling between 1909 and 1917\. American aviation would suffer immeasurably as a result, and the Wrights would establish dangerous precedents for subsequent generations of would-be patent trolls. The Wright Brothers’ patent claim worked in much the same way that modern patent trolling does. Consider, for example, [an oft-cited example of patent trouble from the last decade: Personal Audio](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/transcript). That company held [a 2001 patent](http://www.google.com/patents/US6199076) for “\[a\]n audio program and message distribution system in which a host system organizes and transmits program segments to client subscriber locations,” which it had taken out in connection with a proposed (but unfinished) MP3 player. [Until their infringement lawsuits were invalidated in April 2015](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/04/10/how-the-government-just-protected-your-favorite-podcasts/), the company used that patent to argue that they had invented the idea of podcasting, and that podcasters were therefore stealing their intellectual property. Though separated by a century, the contours of Personal Audio’s lawsuits and those filed by the Wright brothers are basically identical. To understand the Wright Brothers’ lawsuits, we must first consider the content of their patent. Awarded three years after their first flight, the Wrights’ patent for a “flying machine” focused on the brothers’ most groundbreaking contribution to the study of aeronautics: their innovative mechanism for controlling an aircraft in flight. In the Wrights’ design – and in nearly all subsequent aircraft – control was achieved through changes in what the brothers called the “lateral margins” of the airplane’s wings. In practice, this meant moving the rear outer tips of the wings in opposite directions, [which the Wrights achieved by using wires to twist – or “warp” – the wood-and-fabric wings of the Flyer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM1A-co%5Fmec). As an example of what this looked like in practice, imagine twisting the sides of an open-ended spaghetti box in opposite directions. Wing warping was the key innovation that made manned, powered flight a meaningful reality. While [other early aircraft](http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm%5FA19050001000) were capable of generating lift, all save the Wright Flyer were radically unstable and unspeakably dangerous. Orville and Wilbur, therefore, were rightly proud of their insight and deserved any and all intellectual property protections afforded by the law. The Wrights, however, wished to patent not only their wing-warping mechanism but any future device for adjusting the “lateral margins” of an aircraft’s wings – and, in so doing, laid legal claim to the principle of aeronautic control they had discovered. If the patent were interpreted in the way they hoped, it would give them monopolistic control over the aircraft market for years to come. Fortunately for the subsequent history of aviation, many of the Wrights’ earliest competitors were willing to risk a legal contest. One such competitor was [Glenn Curtiss](http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/museum/glenncurtiss.html), a motorcycle maker turned airplane designer who became one of the Wrights’ fiercest competitors. Fitting his aircraft with movable flaps called ailerons instead of a wing-warping mechanism, Curtiss hoped to steer clear of the Wrights’ patent. But because his aircraft operated according to the same principle of control, the Wrights believed they had a case. Curtiss was not alone in his legal woes, however. Between 1909, when the Wrights first sued Curtiss, and 1917, when the Wrights’ patent war sputtered to a halt, the brothers filed suit against a veritable Who’s Who of early aviators. The financial results of these lawsuits were mixed. A German judge ruled against the Wrights. A French court ruled in their favor. And, in the U.S., judges twice ruled against Curtiss—though, as in France, legal wrangling prevented the brothers from collecting significant royalties prior to the termination of the patent war. Meanwhile, the ever-present threat of a sternly worded letter from the Wrights’ lawyers convinced more timid competitors to swallow their pride and pay the brothers massive fees for the opportunity to exhibit their aircraft. But while the financial results of the patent war were mixed, its impact on the state of American aviation was indisputably negative. Even before Wilbur’s death in 1912, during a period of intense litigation, the Wrights had sorely neglected R&D—so much so that by 1915, when Orville sold the company he and his brother had founded, their aircraft were derided as dangerous and obsolete. Once the envy of the skies, Wright aircraft had become an embarrassment. Meanwhile, even though other American designers continued to develop [impressive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscopic%5Fautopilot) [innovations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss%5FJN-4) during the period of the patent wars, the American aircraft industry as a whole was stunted by the litigation. In fact, by the time the United States entered World War I in 1917, the state of domestic aviation was so dismal that the U.S. government could not find a single American aircraft fit for military service. Thus, the country that invented powered flight would take to Europe’s war-torn skies in foreign-made craft. Distressed by this state of affairs, an up-and-coming politician named [Franklin Delano Roosevelt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%5FD.%5FRoosevelt), then serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, decided to take action. Strong-arming key players throughout the American aeronautic industry, Roosevelt convinced intellectual property holders to form a [patent pool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent%5Fpool) that would allow airplane makers to use one another’s technologies for a modest fee. In doing so, Roosevelt effectively brought the patent war to a long overdue conclusion. To say that the Wrights lost the patent war would be a mistake. Orville and Wilbur collected huge sums in exhibition fees from frightened competitors, despite the absence of a clear ruling in their favor. Still, in the long run, a variety of forces – historical momentum among the most important – lined up against the Wrights, ensuring that the aeronautical principles they had uncovered belonged to all. Today, then, we should remember the Wrights’ historic first flight. But we should also remember the years of needless, bitter legal conflict in which they embroiled the industry they founded.  **_Historians explain how the past informs the present_** _Sean Trainor has a Ph.D. in History & Women’s Studies from Penn State University. He teaches history and humanities at Santa Fe College and blogs at_ [_seantrainor.org_](http://seantrainor.org/). ### See Original Models of the Apple I and Other Iconic American Inventions  Printing Press, 1830: Issac Adams, (Unnumbered Patent) The style of bed and platen printing press in this patent model inspired Issac Adams’ design of the later Adams Power Press, which was praised by early 19th century printers for its production of quality book work. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  Telegraph, 1837: Samuel F. B. Morse, Prototype. Samuel F. B. Morse converted an artist’s canvas stretcher into a telegraph receiver that recorded a message as a wavy line on a strip of paper. His telegraph transmitter sent electric pulses representing letter and numbers that activated an electromagnet on the receiver. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  Violin, 1852: William S. Mount, (Patent No. 8981). William S. Mount proposed creating violins with concave or hollow backs. This patent model represented a design innovation that would minimize the strain on the violin soundboard and avoid interference with the “sonorous and vibrating qualities” of the instrument. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  Typewriter, 1868: C. Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden & Samuel W. Soule (Patent No. 79265). This patent model was created by the three Milwaukee inventors who made progress towards a viable typewriting machine. Six years later, Remington & Sons produced the first commercially successful machine, bearing the names of Sholes and Glidden. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  Sewing Machine, 1873: Helen Blanchard, (Patent No. 141987). This patent model for an improvement in sewing machines introduced the buttonhole stitch. Blanchard received some 28 patents, many having to do with sewing. She is best remembered for another overstitch sewing invention, the “zigzag.” Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  Camera Shutter, 1879: Eadweard Muybridge, (Patent No. 212865). This “Method and Apparatus for Photographing Objects in Motion” was adapted to photographic equipment. As demonstrated with this patent model, it could produce images of subjects in rapid motion. It was used by Eadweard Muybridge in his celebrated animal locomotion photography. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  Incandescent Lamp, 1881: Thomas Edison (Patent No. 239373). Thomas Edison submitted this model to patent a variation on his newly invented light bulb. Although he never put this design into production, this lamp could be disassembled to replace a burned-out filament. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  High-Strength Fiber, 1965: Stephanie Kwolek (Patent Nos. 3819587 and RE30352). Kwolek’s 1965 discovery at DuPont of strong polymer fibers resulted in DuPont Kevlar, best known for its use in bullet-resistant body armor Courtesy Hagley Museum and Library  Apple I Computer, 1976: Steve Jobs (Patent No. 7166791) & Steve Wozniak (Patent No. 4136359). In 1976 the first form of computer designed by Stephen Wozniak and sold by Wozniak in conjunction with Steve Jobs was sold, and became a leader in personal computing. Originally marketed to hobbyists only primarily as a fully assembled circuit board; purchasers had to add their own case and monitor in order to create a working computer. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History  Artificial Heart, 1977: Robert Jarvik, M.D., Prototype. This electrohydraulic artificial heart is a prototype for what became the Jarvik-7 Total Artificial Heart, which was first implanted into a human in December 1982 at the University of Utah Medical Center. The two sides of the device are connected with Velcro. 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