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This is the most telling part for me: they were unwilling to show the machine to anyone who might steal its design, since enforcing their patent

by hliyan 11y ago

This is the most telling part for me: they were unwilling to show the machine to anyone who might steal its design, since enforcing their patent rights could be a long, laborious, and very expensive process. Having conquered flight, they wanted to cash out before going any further. What happened was the exact opposite. I still have trouble convincing young people with startup ideas that there's really no point being secretive about their 'invention'. Ideas are rarely stolen with impunity. When they are stolen successfully, it's usually because the inventor was so secretive that a clone was regarded as the original by the public and the media.

graycat 11y ago
So, gee, now all concepts of intellectual property (IP) and proprietary technology are kaput? So we should just f'get about patents and trade secret protections. And for national security, sure, no longer need security classifications such as Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, etc. Sorry, I don't believe that. Here's my guess at why people say not to keep an idea secret and, instead, to tell the world: By an idea they mean just a rough description of a commercial product/service as a user/customer might see it. The technology used for the product/service is just routine software and common, off the shelf (COTS) hardware. Any crucial, core, original proprietary technology is not expected and is just missing. Instead, when there was some software for automatic trading and it appeared that a guy got a personal copy, the owners of that software started legal action to protect their technology and intellectual property -- they didn't tell the world the crucial, core internal details of just how their software worked.
vlehto 11y ago
"Although Brewster patented the kaleidoscope in 1817 (GB 4136), a copy of the prototype was shown to London opticians and copied before the patent was granted. As a consequence, the kaleidoscope became produced in large numbers, but yielded no direct financial benefits to Brewster. It proved to be a massive success with two hundred thousand kaleidoscopes sold in London and Paris in just three months." These days you should promote any invention as soon as you get patent pending. But I can see why Wright brothers we're suspicious back then. Other major failures we're early concentration to military sales and not taking competition seriously. Military sales are take it or leave it, you either win big or nothing. If some conservative major gets assigned to deal with the purchase and you are sellign something really new, the sale might be doomed before you start.
jitix 11y ago
> it's usually because the inventor was so secretive that a clone was regarded as the original by the public and the media From a legal perspective this is not true. But the fact remains that to enforce your IP you will need to spend a lot of money and effort, which is not something a startup can/should do.
acomjean 11y ago
When I was at IBM (research), they generated a ton of patents. But they went through a process to decide if something should be patented (tell everyone about it), or just be a trade secret. They used or licensed these secrets, which seemed to be all about making chips/ waffers and such. I think the thinking was it would be difficult to figure how they made said thing, once it was out in the public. If you patent, everyone knows.

by hliyan 11y ago

graycat 11y ago

So, gee, now all concepts of intellectual property (IP) and proprietary technology are kaput? So we should just f'get about patents and trade secret protections. And for national security, sure, no longer need security classifications such as Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, etc. Sorry, I don't believe that. Here's my guess at why people say not to keep an idea secret and, instead, to tell the world: By an idea they mean just a rough description of a commercial product/service as a user/customer might see it. The technology used for the product/service is just routine software and common, off the shelf (COTS) hardware. Any crucial, core, original proprietary technology is not expected and is just missing. Instead, when there was some software for automatic trading and it appeared that a guy got a personal copy, the owners of that software started legal action to protect their technology and intellectual property -- they didn't tell the world the crucial, core internal details of just how their software worked.

vlehto 11y ago

"Although Brewster patented the kaleidoscope in 1817 (GB 4136), a copy of the prototype was shown to London opticians and copied before the patent was granted. As a consequence, the kaleidoscope became produced in large numbers, but yielded no direct financial benefits to Brewster. It proved to be a massive success with two hundred thousand kaleidoscopes sold in London and Paris in just three months." These days you should promote any invention as soon as you get patent pending. But I can see why Wright brothers we're suspicious back then. Other major failures we're early concentration to military sales and not taking competition seriously. Military sales are take it or leave it, you either win big or nothing. If some conservative major gets assigned to deal with the purchase and you are sellign something really new, the sale might be doomed before you start.

jitix 11y ago

> it's usually because the inventor was so secretive that a clone was regarded as the original by the public and the media From a legal perspective this is not true. But the fact remains that to enforce your IP you will need to spend a lot of money and effort, which is not something a startup can/should do.

acomjean 11y ago

When I was at IBM (research), they generated a ton of patents. But they went through a process to decide if something should be patented (tell everyone about it), or just be a trade secret. They used or licensed these secrets, which seemed to be all about making chips/ waffers and such. I think the thinking was it would be difficult to figure how they made said thing, once it was out in the public. If you patent, everyone knows.