Article ID: CBB001320690

The Airplane as an Open-Source Invention (2013)

unapi

Meyer, Peter B. (Author)


Revue Économiques
Volume: 64
Pages: 115--132


Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on the relationship between patents, economics and innovation.
Language: English

Airplanes were invented after decades of experimentation in many countries through a process we can call open-source innovation. Experimenters, inventors, and writers contributed to the airplane's development by sharing information in publications, in clubs, by writing letters and by visiting. The hundreds of aeronautical patents before 1900 were treated like publications, not like claims to intellectual property. Inventors of modern airplanes copied earlier designs, analogously to advances in open-source software today. In 1908 airplanes were seen to fly in public exhibitions, and a new industry of airplane manufacturers started quickly in several countries based largely on public non-proprietary information. With the appearance of industrial airplane manufacturing, patents assumed a new importance in the context of commercial competition.

...More

Description On the early years of flight before appearance of industrial airplane manufacturing.


Included in

Article Hilaire-Pérez, Liliane; MacLeod, Christine; Nuvolari, Alessandro (2013) Innovation without Patents: An Introduction. Revue Économiques (p. 5). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320690/

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Authors & Contributors
Brady, Tim
Mark C. Wilkins
Leo Marriott
Vleck, Jenifer Van
Ramirez, Enrique Gualberto, III
Weightman, Gavin
Concepts
Aircraft; airplanes
Aircraft industry
Technology
Aeronautics; aviation
World War II
Technology and war; technology and the military
Time Periods
20th century, early
20th century
19th century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
United States
Germany
Great Britain
France
Norfolk (England)
Illinois (U.S.)
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