Greed and the Wright Brothers –



What was Curtiss doing in the meantime? In addition to coming up with the idea of adding wheels for easier takeoffs and landings, he invented an entirely different system for dealing with lateral stability, a system of flaps that went up and down and controlled the wings. (Airplane manufacturers today still use that basic insight.) The Wrights responded by filing a lawsuit, claiming that Curtiss was violating their patents. The litigation would consume them literally until the day Wilbur Wright died.

via Greed and the Wright Brothers –

The problem with the Intellectual Property is that it incentivizes people to sit on their laurels once they’ve captured an idea, so stiffles the next round of innovation. Most of these ideas aren’t nearly as revolutionary as you think, as even ground break ideas are typically simultaneously invented by independent groups. There is a great survey of this across multiple major inventions in human history in Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From.