[WWI] Ingenious vs inevitable

[Mark Shannon]

There are three important aspects that must be proven in the claims for a patent:  Novelty, Utility, and Non-Obviousness.  The problem comes in defining these consistently and determining what is "Non-obvious" novelty.  It cannot just be a new invention.  It has to be one that another practitioner, skilled in the art, with all of the literature in the subject at his mental fingertips, would not necessarily have thought of.  Most court cases for patent infringement devolve into the plaintiff claiming that the defendant was using the patented invention without permission -- with the defendant claiming that the patent is invalid because the invention was an obvious development.  Odds tend to be about 50-50 for each side going in, every time, and depend on the judge.  This is one reason U.S. Patent requirements and procedures revisions are being debated in Congress.

Having gotten 7 U.S. patents in my career, and another 7 equivalents, I had this stuff drummed into me.

Now, which side of the question putting a corrugated aluminum skin on all airplane surfaces fell in 1917 is a difficult flip of the coin.  Junkers was certainly ahead of the crowd in doing it, but I think he just got there first.  I also think a more important development was the aluminum monocoque and semi-monocoque stressed skin structure -- but was that even non-obvious, given Roland, Pfalz, Lloyd, and Albatros construction methods in wood?

Mark Shannon
shingend at ix.netcom.com



----- Original Message ----- 
From: ernest thomas 
To: World War I Modeling Mailing List
Sent: 10/1/2007 8:53:38 PM 
Subject: [WWI] Ingenious vs inevitable




From: Neil.Crawford at volvo.com
To: wwi at wwi-models.org
Subject: Re: [WWI] Calling Matt Bittner!!!!


I think it was really ingenious of him, thats why no one disputes that Hunkers was a pioneer in all metal design.
Breguet used aluminium earlier, but the Junkers designs were much more advanced.
/Neil


In addition to the Junkers article, what also got me thinking about the question was what I've recently learned about getting a patent. It seems for an international patent, the thing you want to patent must be truely novel. It can't be something that anyone else would have come up with in the same situation.
At least that's what the patent lawyer says. 
And using aluminum for aircraft construction just seems like somethin you couldn't get an interntional patent for.  
E. 




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