The Wright Patent Is Upheld a Second Time

Meanwhile, the Wright-Curtiss litigation dragged on. In February 1913, the same judge who had rendered the first judgment in favor of the Wright brothers in 1910 now issued a second opinion in which he specifically found that the Wrights’ discovery of the use of a combination of rudder and wing deflection to maintain lateral control was the breakthrough that was patent­able. The court then held that the use of ailerons was the functional equivalent of wing warping, thus the use of ailerons fell within the orb of the Wright patent.7 But it was too late for Wilbur Wright. He died on May 30, 1912 at the age of 45 because, many said, of the stresses of the pat­ent litigation.

Curtiss, however, was not retreating; he was regrouping. To his side came none other than the automobile magnate Henry Ford. Ford had recently won a protracted patent battle with one George Seldon, who had claimed a prior patent right to Ford’s lightweight “road engine,” which was central to Ford’s ideas for mass production of automobiles. Ford’s patent attorney was W. Benton Crisp, and Ford volun­teered Crisp’s services to Glenn Curtiss. Under attorney Crisp’s guidance, a new strategy for defeating the Wright patent was initiated. The appellate decision that enjoined Curtiss’ use of ailerons as being in violation of the Wright patent had cited only the simultaneous use of ailerons in opposite directions, which provided the lift differential for the two wings, caus­ing the banking effect used in a coordinated turn. Crisp suggested that the Curtiss aircraft be rigged so that the ailerons would be used singly, not simultaneously. This use of ailerons had not been enjoined by the court since it had not been adjudicated. It was, therefore, necessary for Orville to bring another lawsuit against Curtiss. Thus, the patent litigation rolled on in a seem­ingly endless procession of trials and appeals as the wheels of justice ground slowly on, and exceedingly fine.

In the next chapter we will see why and how this enduring legal contest was to be surprisingly resolved for the good of the country and for avia­tion itself.