Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Google patents on "Oltville Wright"

As of December 20, 2006, Google patents still lists the inventor of US 821,393 as one "Oltville Wright," as distinct from Orville Wright.

Google does recognize that one of the inventors of US 1,011,106 is Glenn H. Curtiss. Note that the '106 patent does NOT reference the basic Wright patent, the '393. The Curtiss patent does illustrate a problem in nomenclature, as the Curtiss folk preferred the name aerodrome to aeroplane.

***Further thought

One notes that a co-inventor on the '106 patent is Thomas Selfridge, who died in September 1908, prior to the filing of the application for the '106. IPBiz has wondered how Selfridge, an employee of the US Army, was named a co-inventor of a patent for a private group (which included Alexander Graham Bell and Glenn Curtiss). The patent was within the scope of the work Selfridge did for the Army.

Recall an earlier post on IPBiz:

Willie Higinbotham did not file patents on the game, because he was a government employee and would achieve no direct benefit. [remember this theme in the history of radio patents, wherein one of the pioneers was an employee of the U.S. weather service and lost out big time?] Higinbotham did have US patents in other areas.

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