10 ms·

Hi Hacker News, Several people in this thread have pointed out the major reason that this airplane design is not viable, which is the weight of the batteries.

Hi Hacker News, Several people in this thread have pointed out the major reason that this airplane design is not viable, which is the weight of the batteries. I have developed an alternative that I would like to patent. I asked for an introduction here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/65cazg/i_need_an_introduction_to_an_engineer_who_has/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/65cazg/i_need... But I did not receive responses. Subsequent to this, I reached out directly to patent attorneys I thought would be qualified. Here I ran into a big problem. I will quote my reply email: >"After speaking with the partner who handles our firm’s major aviation client, we have determined that taking you on as a client would likely result in a conflict of interest. This is more than just a matter of potentially overlapping subject matter. The fact that you wish to license your IP to other aviation companies would actually mean we couldn’t represent both you and our other client in those negotiations. In effect, we’d be on both sides of the discussion, which is by definition a conflict of interest." This is actually an issue with any qualified patent attorney who might take on this case. I would therefore like to work with an aviation engineer. I believe we could draft the patent language ourselves. I don't want to include a terrible amount of information here, but I want to list one benefit of the invention: - Solves the distance issue. jacquesm's analysis in this thread is absolutely correct. This is what motivated me to ask if there were any aviation engineers in this thread. The cost to entering the aviation market is extremely high and the only viable means of doing so is via the patent approach, so I would like to work with someone who has had patents in their own name. Please let me know if you would be someone who might be able to collaborate with me on this project, and I will get in touch with you. Thank you!

idreyn 9y ago
Do you have a working prototype?
- aviationthrway 9y ago
  Hi. Thank you for your reply. I am never going to build any airplane (well never say never - I should say, it's completely orthogonal to any of my plans). I have a mathematical (-type, obviously it's physics and aerodynamics) proof that it should be possible, so that the person reviewing it would be quite easily assured that what I propose is theoretically possible - but then so is a space elevator. I do not have the level of qualifications necessary to show that it is actually easily possible at airplane scales and with present materials. If I built a prototype (doing so is not in my plans) then it would be at a very small scale and I personally don't know how to do the calculations to see how it applies to larger scales. In other words, if I had the prototype flying around me right now it wouldn't help convince me that it's possible and plausible. Further calculations are necessary and only an aviation company (or an aviation engineer) is able to perform those. Are you an aviation engineer? Do you know someone who could spend a few minutes on this case? I will need a small NDA but I am not very concerned of IP theft, just the formalities; the assurance can be verbal via email. Unfortunately the medium would have to be via email as public disclosure prevents patenting and I don't know at what point (if ever) I would get to that stage. Let me know if you or someone you can put me in touch with could look at this briefly. Your profile here does not list an email. Thank you for your assistance.
iancarroll 9y ago
> This is actually an issue with any qualified patent attorney who might take on this case. Why?
- aviationthrway 9y ago
  Because they're qualified if they have aviation patent experience. They would have aviation patent experience if they have clients. I want to license to those clients. It's kind of a Catch-22. The most qualified attorneys I can find easily (by Googing) are right out. At this point I think the best approach is to pair with an aviation engineer who has gone through all this... hence my comment here. It's by no means a simple situation. That said, I'm not really sure where I can find such engineers. I assume most of them are working with large companies and are not open to this sort of collaboration.
rhino369 9y ago
The following isn't legal advice and I'm not your attorney. Keep looking for someone with related but not direct experience. Many of the details of patent prosecution are procedural and legal, not exactly technical. Anyone who has done patent prosecution is better than a technical expert. Even if you get a patent passed the examiner, you might have gotten claims that were too broad or too narrow. You might have made statements during prosecution that make asserting the application difficult. You might have written the claims in a way that is difficult to enforce.
- aviationthrway 9y ago
  thanks for this feedback. if you don't mind replying with an email address I have some more questions along the same lines, since it sounds like you know what you're doing. (if not you can ignore this reply.) thanks again.

idreyn 9y ago

Do you have a working prototype?

aviationthrway 9y ago
Hi. Thank you for your reply. I am never going to build any airplane (well never say never - I should say, it's completely orthogonal to any of my plans). I have a mathematical (-type, obviously it's physics and aerodynamics) proof that it should be possible, so that the person reviewing it would be quite easily assured that what I propose is theoretically possible - but then so is a space elevator. I do not have the level of qualifications necessary to show that it is actually easily possible at airplane scales and with present materials. If I built a prototype (doing so is not in my plans) then it would be at a very small scale and I personally don't know how to do the calculations to see how it applies to larger scales. In other words, if I had the prototype flying around me right now it wouldn't help convince me that it's possible and plausible. Further calculations are necessary and only an aviation company (or an aviation engineer) is able to perform those. Are you an aviation engineer? Do you know someone who could spend a few minutes on this case? I will need a small NDA but I am not very concerned of IP theft, just the formalities; the assurance can be verbal via email. Unfortunately the medium would have to be via email as public disclosure prevents patenting and I don't know at what point (if ever) I would get to that stage. Let me know if you or someone you can put me in touch with could look at this briefly. Your profile here does not list an email. Thank you for your assistance.

iancarroll 9y ago

> This is actually an issue with any qualified patent attorney who might take on this case. Why?

aviationthrway 9y ago
Because they're qualified if they have aviation patent experience. They would have aviation patent experience if they have clients. I want to license to those clients. It's kind of a Catch-22. The most qualified attorneys I can find easily (by Googing) are right out. At this point I think the best approach is to pair with an aviation engineer who has gone through all this... hence my comment here. It's by no means a simple situation. That said, I'm not really sure where I can find such engineers. I assume most of them are working with large companies and are not open to this sort of collaboration.

rhino369 9y ago

The following isn't legal advice and I'm not your attorney. Keep looking for someone with related but not direct experience. Many of the details of patent prosecution are procedural and legal, not exactly technical. Anyone who has done patent prosecution is better than a technical expert. Even if you get a patent passed the examiner, you might have gotten claims that were too broad or too narrow. You might have made statements during prosecution that make asserting the application difficult. You might have written the claims in a way that is difficult to enforce.

aviationthrway 9y ago
thanks for this feedback. if you don't mind replying with an email address I have some more questions along the same lines, since it sounds like you know what you're doing. (if not you can ignore this reply.) thanks again.