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The patent on the Space Shuttle has expired
- marcoperaza 11y agoThank God. I can finally get started on my clone.
- LeifCarrotson 11y agoThe important thing isn't that you can now build a clone (it was scrapped for good reason: satellite retrieval never picked up and there are cheaper ways to get things into space and people in and out of space) but that the technology used in it is now free to use in your new spaceship. Boeing can't come by and say "sorry, you can't do that, patented" because you can point to NASAs patent for prior art. You don't even need to mess with getting NASA approval to use their patented system because the patent has expired. This is the system working as designed: novel stuff gets patented and written down, temporary monopoly, then the patent expires and others can use it. It works less well when non-novel stuff gets patented, or when the industry moves so fast that the expiration term is disproportionately long, or when copyright gets extended and never expires.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Fiahil 11y agoThis would make a fine addition to the ones collected here [1] for decorative purpose! [1]: http://www.howacarworks.com/blog/iconic-patent-posters http://www.howacarworks.com/blog/iconic-patent-posters
- rzzzt 11y ago"Fig." notation on LEGO patents is very appropriate.
- colomon 11y agoMy son has some of the Lego ones framed on his wall.
- gherkin0 11y agoSome of those are really surprising. Notably the Monopoly one (I would have though that would be a copyright) and the floppy disk one (filed 1995, really?).
- stormbrew 11y agoMonopoly the name and logo would be trademarked. Monopoly's board design and text would be copyrighted. Monopoly's mechanism of action (how you play the game) would be patented. More or less, IANAL, etc.
- rzzzt 11y agoA patent for an early 3-inch disk and drive mechanism was filed in 1980 [1]. The inventor was working on it since the early seventies [2]. [1] https://www.google.com/patents/WO1981001906A1 https://www.google.com/patents/WO1981001906A1 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_floppy_disk#The_3-inch_compact_floppy_disk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_floppy_disk#The...
- nkozyra 11y agoElectric guitar in 1959, too. That's a very long time between invention and patent (unless a previous one had expired).
- qbrass 11y agoIt's a patent for the shape of the guitar, not electric guitars themselves.
- qbrass 11y agoThe dog watch that keeps time at 7x normal speed.
- AlexMuir 11y agoI just added it to the page :)
- bencollier49 11y agoBah, it was invalid anyway. The USSR had prior art from the Buran.
- danielvf 11y agoYou might have the order backwards. :) The Buran was a direct reaction to the Shuttle program, and it did not fly until 13 years after this patent was granted.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bencollier49 11y agoAnd I get downvoted for a bad joke about Soviet technological espionage! You guys either have a much better sense of humour than me, or a much worse one. :-)
- chrislloyd 11y agoI'm a little taken aback that a Government institution like NASA would even file patents and discourage open innovation. Does anybody know the reasons why they file patents? Are NASA's patents enforced and have they collected royalties?
- kqr2 11y agoIt's probably a defensive patent so someone can't sue NASA for using their own intellectual property.
- chrislloyd 11y agoI know very little about the topic, but is that a thing? Surely just publishing (without asserting ownership) could establish prior art?
- bdonlan 11y agoIn theory, yes. In practice, patent examiners mostly only look at patents when checking for prior art. Once someone else gets a patent for your invention you'll face a costly legal process to invalidate the bogus patent.
- URSpider94 11y agoWhile that may be true for generically publishing the work online, there are dedicated disclosure journals that are included in prior art searches by patent examiners. If you want to publish as an alternative to patenting, this is where you do it.
- fnordsensei 11y agoAny sufficiently large organization tends to become host to a population of defensive lawyers, which then produces patents as a side effect of building themselves a nest out of legal documents. Isn't nature beautiful?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
- bonyt 11y agoTitle is a bit misleading. Looks like this patent actually expired quite a while ago, as it was filed in 1974 and granted in 1975. I think it would have expired 17 years from the date it issued, or Feb. 18, 1992.
- pwg 11y agoYou are correct in your computation of the expiration date. Why this was posted now, when it expired over 20 years ago, I am unsure.
- jostmey 11y agoEveryone hates how patents are abused, and yet everyone seems to acknowledge their importance in specific cases. Why not raise the price of patents substantially? It might make patent trolling economically unfeasible, but would still allow for someone to patent the cure the cancer or whatnot?
- jMyles 11y ago> everyone seems to acknowledge their importance in specific cases Up until now? Sure. Maybe. Going forward into the internet age? I don't acknowledge their importance to anyone but the already wealthy and connected.
- notatoad 11y agoThe abuse of patents is largely a problem because it allows the established players to profit while making it hard for independent inventors to get a start. Raising the cost to file a patent is only going to make that worse. It's already at the point of being too expensive to get a patent without some sort of funding.
- samwilliams 11y ago> Why not raise the price of patents substantially? Because it is not only rich people that are innovative? As far as I can see, if anyone is going to have their IP secured by the state, then money should not be the barrier to entry. You could argue that if an idea is good enough, the inventor should be able to secure funding to get the patent. However, there is frequently an issue of timing with these things -- one needs to secure the idea as soon as possible. See the story of the two patent filings for the telephone. Besides, patent trolling is popular because it is extremely profitable. Doubling or tripling the cost of patents will not deter any serious troll.
- trothamel 11y agoThis isn't a patent on the Space Shuttle. It's a patent on an "improved" space shuttle where the External Tank is placed in front of the orbiter. (I didn't read why, but I assume it's to minimize various losses.) Given the problems with foam shedding on the actual ET, it's probably a good thing they didn't adopt this configuration. I checked, and it's actually somewhat buildable - if my back-of-the-envelope math is right, it's shorter than a Saturn V.
- TrevorJ 11y agoSeems like the worst of both worlds in terms a vertical vs horizontal configuration. you've still got two unthrottled SRB's right next to you, and now you've increased the odds of them hitting the liquid tank if they detach.
- caio1982 11y agoSeems to be related: http://www.wired.com/2013/09/building-a-better-stronger-safer-space-shuttle-1982/ http://www.wired.com/2013/09/building-a-better-stronger-safe... Also, von Pragenau's obituary (he died a few months before the Wired article was published, apparently): http://www.hamptoncovefuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2150841&fh_id=13813 http://www.hamptoncovefuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary...
- eplanit 11y agoNot related per se but for that reason all the more interesting. The Wired article refers to a different 1984 patent grant for another Pragenau invention which, had it been utilized by NASA, would have prevented the Challenger accident. It seems Pragenau is an un[der]sung hero.
- ethagknight 11y agoWhy would NASA bother patenting something like this? It's not like USSR would observe the patent and not copy.
- _nedR 11y agoIndeed. The fact that NASA chose to patent it seems to be evidence that patents are not used to protect innovation (of sensitive technologies at least). If it was innovative, they would have probably kept it secret as a matter of national security.
- orionblastar 11y agoThe technology used in the space shuttle is way out of date. IN order to build a new space shuttle one would have to retrofit it with modern technology that is backwards compatible to the signals the old technology used in the shuttle to operate things. For example use a Raspberry PI with an emulator for the old system that the space shuttle used and wire it into the old ports the shuttle uses for connections. You'd have a lighter shuttle that doesn't need as much fuel, but the cost of writing the emulator would be a lot of money. You'd have to reverse engineer the technology in a working shuttle. NASA let this patent expire because it is old technology they aren't using anymore. In modern times there are a few companies building their own rockets that are more economical than building a shuttle. Much as I'd like to see shuttle clones, I remember it had issues that caused at least two shuttles to explode and get destroyed. In making a shuttle clone you'd have to fix the o-ring and loose tiles thing.
- astroteller 11y agoNot many of the issues with the shuttle were related to the electronics, which (in general) worked okay. They also didn't weigh all that much, so your "savings" wouldn't be worth it.
- quietriot 11y agoAnyone else find it odd the shuttle is pointing downwards on the page? What could be the reason for this? I understand that the document is intended to have a landscape orientation. Even if they had the image already prepared, why would they not have mirrored it left to right (and then added the numerical call-outs) so that a portrait orientation of the page would have left the ship facing towards the top of the page? I'm reading too much into this. ?