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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0874.PDF
AUGUST 12, 1920 that a man has had a very distinguished record in and 1907. In 1912 proceedings were taken in the the War will not of necessity entitle him to occupy civil courts to enforce the patents. These went on a post to which he may be temperamentally and until 1914, when an expert commission was appointed technically unsuited. He may have been a most gallant officer, with any number of victories in aerial combat to his credit, but that will not ensure that he will make an efficient Staff officer in the specific job which happens to be going at the moment. As a matter of strict fact, it has been found in many cases that the most brilliant fighting officers are Veritable duffers at office work. We recollect a case in point of a very distinguished officer who was appointed, rather against his will, to an important Staff job, and before he had held it for a month he was known throughout his department as " Alice in Wonderland " and was begging to be sent back to duty. It is obvious that unless Staff officers are selected with a single eye to their efficiency in their several capacities the result may be something ap- proaching disaster, more especially when the work is of the highly technical nature demanded by the R.A.F. We most absolutely agree that, all other things being equal, the fighting man should be the very first consideration. But where all other things are not equal, the efficiency of the Service must be the paramount* thought in the minds of those who have the making of appointments. We are afraid we cannot take-too seriously the charge that men are being appointed who have no technical qualifications for their jobs. One of the first things that occurs to the disgruntled one who has been supplanted, or whose application for a specific post has been unsuccessful, is to say that the man who has got it is some kind of a qualified fool, who is quite ignorant of the work which the other could have performed to perfection. That is human nature as we know it, and we imagine that in this is the source of the complaint in question. But the charge has been made, and we think that in justice to everyone concerned there should be an attempt to substantiate that charge. More than that it does not seem necessary to say at the moment. • • • The claim advanced by M. Esnault- The Pelterie to a royalty of £8© per machine, Pelterie wnere the method of control used is by " Joy-Stick" *ne familiar "joy-stick," has been a Bombshell bombshell thrown into the camp of the French aviation industry. The total sum at issue is nearly three millions sterling, and the number of machines upon which the claim in France is made is over 33,000. M. Esnault-Pelterie claims to hold all the patents covering this method of control, his patents going back to 1906-7. Up to the moment, the French courts seem to have upheld his claims and have granted all sorts of injunctions and embargoes on sums owing by the Government to the various constructors against whom claims have been made. Some of these are very heavy indeed. For instance, there are claims for 20 million francs against the Spad firm ; Nieuport and Breguet, 16 millions each ; Caudron, 8 millions ; Morane-Saulnier, 5 millions; and Henri Farman, 1 million francs. The whole of the Fre'hch industry affected has announced that if the claims are persisted in, all the aeronautical works will be closed down and many thousands of workers thrown out of employ- ment. So far as it is possible to discover, the patents to investigate the validity of the patents. Then came the War, which held up everything, and the proceedings hung fire until March of last year, when the commission was reconstituted for the purpose of settling the amount of royalty to be paid on each machine in which the patents were embodied, and also the number of machines involved. A month ago the royalty seems to have been fixed at 2,000 francs per machine, and an order made against the firm of Letord and Niepce. This was closely followed by similar orders against Messrs. Breguet and the Morane-Saulnier firm. Messrs. Vickers are involved, apparently in respect of machines supplied to the French Government, on which a payment of 1,500,000 francs was demanded. This amount was reduced after argument before the judge to 800,000 francs, and what amounts to a garnishee order was made against sums owing to the firm by the French Government. There seems to be every prospect that the proceedings will drag over during the next five years before a final settlement is arrived at, but in the meantime consternation is a mild term to apply to the state of-mind into which the industry has been thrown. Whatof the BritishIndustry ? The question which everybody is asking is whether or not the Esnault-Pelterie patents affect the British industry. It is stated that several firms have been " approached " by the inventor on the subject, but that does not carry us very far. M. Esnault-Pelterie does hold certain British patents dealing with the control of aeroplanes, which we have not as yet had time properly to investigate. A first examination would seem to indicate that they are not of any far-reaching effect because 01 their circumscribed nature. There certainly does not appear to be anything that could be held to have the character of a master-patent on the " joy- stick " method of control. There is, moreover, always the question of priority of invention to be investigated. Admittedly, M. Esnault-Pelterie was one of the first, if not the first, to invent this method of control, but there is certainly a doubt whether or not he fully covered his invention through the British Patent Office. Further, as the Wright Brothers found when they attempted to patent certain of their inventions here, there were a large number of inventions patented already before actual flying had become an accomplished fact. In several directions there had been clear anticipation, although there were no machines to which the inventions could be applied, and their attempts to obtain protection thus failed. Apart altogether, then, from the question of precisely what steps were taken to cover the Esnault- Pelterie inventions, there is always the possibility— amounting almost to probability—that a careful search of all the records would reveal the fact that they had been essentially anticipated prior to the. date of the French patents. For the sake ot the British' industry it is sincerely to be hoped that one of the two contingencies noted may have arisen. Anything like the demands which have been sprung upon the French industry would spell something very like ruin to the British firms engaged in the construction of aircraft. The strong involved were taken out, as we have said, in 1906 probability is that nobody would benefit in the end 876
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