Greed and the Wright Brothers
“By attempting to neuter Curtiss,” Goldstone writes, “the Wrights stifled the development of American aviation.”
He adds: “That is, of course, the irony of the patent system. Without patent protection, a competitor can simply replicate an invention and undercut the inventor’s price — which necessarily includes all the time and expense of research and development — so the incentive to experiment and create is severely inhibited. But if innovators such as Glenn Curtiss cannot build on the progress of others without paying exorbitantly for the privilege, the incentive to continue to experiment and create is similarly inhibited.”
Thus, in the story of the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, is a lesson for our age as well.