An entire entry on the struggle over owned the patent on flying machines - specifically the technology necessary to navigate them.
The ability to issue patents and copyrights are a delegated power.
- Click here for it.
The Wright brothers patent war centers on the patent they received for their method of an airplane's flight control. The Wright brothers were two Americans who are widely credited with inventing and building the world's first flyable airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903.[1][2][3]
Even after Wilbur Wright had died, and Orville Wright had retired in 1916 (selling the rights to their patent to a successor company, the Wright-Martin Corp.), the patent war continued, and even expanded, as other manufacturers launched lawsuits of their own—creating a growing crisis in the U.S. aviation industry.[4][5]
The patent war stalled development of the U.S. aviation industry.[4][6][7][5][8] (This claim has been disputed in research.[9]) As a consequence, airplane development in the United States fell so far behind Europe[4] that in World War I American pilots were forced to fly European combat aircraft, instead.[10][11][12][13] After the war began, the U.S. Government pressured the aviation industry to form an organization to share patents.
