I can't imagine any other operator even wanting to use Burt's concept. It was a nice stunt to win the prize, but it's certainly not scalable to an orbital system, and there are plenty of ways (perhaps even better ones) to do suborbital without it. But a patent, however pointless, probably makes some investor (perhaps including Branson, who is reportedly part owner of TheSpaceShipCompany) feel more financially secure.

I can't imagine another operator wanting to use it now either, now that it's patented.

My point was that no one would have even if it hadn't been. They certainly won't now, but I think that the patent was a waste of money.

Rutan is a smart guy...I am sure that there is some "playing to history" and why not? If we have any chance at all of opening space to the rest of America just not one of its government agencies...the future belongs to folks like Rutan and Bigelow and the like...and 50 years from now...well Patents might be "entertaining" to have on file.

Robert

I'll buy one. How much do they cost?

I hear it's $300 filing cost plus whatever it takes to do the research and write a passable application (this can be a couple of orders of magnitude more so I gather).

hahahaha

"During atmosphere reentry, the wing aft portions are steeply elevated to provide a stable high-drag altitude for the spaceship"

That's what it says on the uspto site too.

Well, they've bollocksed *that* up. It's only the abstract not the claims so it doesn't matter a lot, but it's still funny.

Well I'll probably have to admit I'm a Burt Rutan fanboy but I don't see any problems with this even if they did it purely for the fun of it (and it might as well have been forced upon them by some cautious lawyer).

Beats any vaporware or PHB-idea patent in my book.

By the way I'm hoping Arca's Stabilo rocket will be the second private design to reach suborbital with a human. Would be fun if the two first designs were the most unconventional (and then Armadillo Aerospace next? I like their recent super-modular idea).

I'd imagine that the costs involved are more than offset by the free publicity Rutan and Branson have just received. Moreover, a patent ads another layer of respectability to their enterprise, which is always helpful to a new business.

It doesn't cost much and might be worth something in the future.

The kick-up wing is useless for re-entry - too much stress and shock, yes? That is the case here - what about a planet with a thinner atmosphere?

Patents are actually quite expensive, if you actually intend to protect your IP in the global marketplace. Remember, you need to patent it in many countries, and you have to pay to keep the patent going over its lifespan (which is considerably more expensive in many other countries than it is in the US). The figure I recall seeing was something like $250,000/patent overall.

Paul

Not even close.

I did my last patent in the U.S., The 11 major European Union countries and Hong Kong for no more than about $25k.

The continuing fees are not that bad.

Dennis

Not even close.

I got my information from a presentation from an actual corporate patent attorney. It was much higher than $25K/patent. It very well may have covered more countries than your effort.

I think you probably don't need full patent protection for a lot of things. With something like the Spaceship One design, just patenting the design in the US would probably preclude a competitor from using the design and doing business in the US.

Then I would not have him do any of my patents!

There are only certain countries that you have to worry about with space related patents. For example I would not patent in Sierra Leone.

Under the WTO rules if you patent in one country in the WTO they are honored elsewhere. This is hard to enforce so what you do is to patent in one country per region (USA, Europe, Hong Kong). The Japanese will honor a USA/Europe/Hong Kong patent as they would their own due to years of pressure from the U.S. high tech industry.

You patent in Hong Kong to at least put an obstacle in the path of any Chinese effort. While you can't really successfully sue there you can block other countries that do honor patents from doing business with Chinese companies that attempt to break them.

There are a lot of crap patents out there that should never have been issues and folks are left to fight it out in the courts. However, for the patents themselves, the number that I quoted is a good one.

Dennis

Considering the backlog in the US Patent Office (currently running at approx 4-5 years, if I recall), if the patent was just issued in the last few weeks, it's pretty likely that it was first applied for back in 2003, when it wasn't entirely clear what Rutan was doing. The "shuttlecock" design was worth protecting at that time when the X-Prize was still on the line.

update: I just checked the abstract, and it was applied for 3 years and 2 weeks ago. In 2004, this idea *was* worth protecting.

Wow, for once I completely agree with Rand. Obviously there are many ways to do suborbital without it, the X-15 way (lots of control authority) for one. Not saying it was better, just different. Not scalable to orbital reentries; check.

I just have to know Rand; how hard was it for you to use the words “nice stunt” and “pointless” in the same paragraph with “Burt” and “TheSpaceShipCompany?” No need to get all defensive, It’s just a humorous rhetorical.

how hard was it for you to use the words “nice stunt” and “pointless” in the same paragraph with “Burt” and “TheSpaceShipCompany?”

It's trivially easy to do so. After all, why worry about foolish people who would take the words out of context? No one sensible is going to pay any attention to people like them.

First, I have patents and have gotten money from venture capatilist investors.
A patent in the US typically costs a few thousand $. Then step and repeat at various (some higher) costs for different parts of the world. The patent is worthwhile because INVESTORS value patents. For those trying to make a business as opposed to being tech geeks its important. Also, later in life a corporation can 'trade' patents with another corp should infringement issues arise. When upstarts begin to succeed, the biggies often file suit. It's nice to have patents to trade. That's another reason investors want you to panent ANYTHING patentabke. The cost is peanuts.

>out of context

Of course it was taken out of context. I even labeled it as “humorous” for the comicality challenged.
Satire: literary ridicule done with humor

You must be a real scream at dinner parties.

Bit of a technical tangent, but would the feathered wing still be practical in a p2p reentry? Speeds would obviously be higher, but I'm wondering if they'd be high enough to make that approach useless.

It seems odd to me only that he patented the whole thing. The novel part is the shuttlecock design of the wings, and that is all that should have been patented (or for that matter, patentable).

For better or worse, it's also quite popular for marketing literature to brag about how a particular product/technique is patented.

Sorry for all the typos above. I was babysitting at the time and failed to multi-task properly.

Brian: what about a planet with a thinner atmosphere?

Or denser.

The thickness of the atmosphere shouldn't matter, up to a point. The deceleration is done at an altitude where the density (which declines roughly exponentially with altitude) gives the desired deceleration.

(Of course, if the density is too low, that altitude becomes too low, or even negative,)

I wonder whether either Rutan or the patent office was aware of this concept: http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/craft/apocular.htm

Rand: As noted the patent was 'applied for' in 2004. I understand that it's been found that the 'shuttle-cock' idea won't work for orbital flight. Any references for that? If not, why not?
Thanks

Randy

Actually this makes a great deal of sense from the business perceptive.

First it prevents the design from being in the public domain where someone may make a simple improvement and then patent it for their own use.

Next it provides a legal mechanism to license the product by a third party for production should the desire arise.

Third, it sorts out the ownnership rights on the design between Burt Rutan's firm who built it and Paul Allen's firm that funded R&D on it and Branson's design changes. As such it marks a baseline of you owns which elements of the design and prevents problems like the one that arose between Burt Rutan and Jim Benson on the engines used on SpaceShipOne.

Finally it actually does allow additional revenue streams now as he is now able to legally ask for royalties from model aircraft and rocket firms that sell models of it. Same for souvenirs. Many folks in aerospace don't realize it but automakers get 5% to 10% of the retail price of every car model sold, past or present designs, as royalities for the model companies using their IP.

So this is actually a smart move and illustrates the difference between firms that view space commerce as a business instead of those who still treat it as a hobby.

THere are 3 modes for suborbital re-entry.
High Drag, Lifting re-entry and propulsive re-entry.

Burt has a very clever trick there, and with some good controls work, it may be more stable.

Mr. Rutan has another patent pending on this technology that is awaiting examination. It published last summer with Publication No. 2006/0145018 and is called "Unitized Hybrid Rocket System." It appears to be directed to details of the propulsion system. To view, go to this URL: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html and enter the publication number.