Wright patent wars reprised: fight over the winglet of US 5,348,253
Airbus is seeking a declaratory judgment against Aviation Partners of invalidity and non-infringement of US 5,348,253, with claims directed to a blended winglet. Holy wing warping, batman, the aviation patent wars are back, 100 years later.
The first claim of US 5,348,253 states:
A blended winglet attachable to a tip of a wing; said wing having an upper and a lower surface, a leading edge and a trailing edge; said wing leading edge and trailing edge being the fore and aft intersections of said upper and lower surfaces; said blended winglet comprising a curved transition section and a near-planar section contiguous with said transition section; said near-planar section having a cant angle measured from the normal to said wing and prescribed within limits to provide a desired drag reduction for minimal structural weight; said winglet projecting at an angle to the wing plane and having an upper surface and a lower surface, a leading edge and a trailing edge; said winglet leading edge and trailing edge being the fore and aft intersections of said upper and lower surfaces of said winglet; said wing and winglet upper and lower surfaces defining a solid having streamwise cross sections of airfoil shape; said airfoils having thickness camber and twist variations to provide optimum aerodynamic loading of said surfaces; said winglet leading edge and trailing edge having a varying streamwise spacing and varying monotonically within prescribed limits whereby the formation of vortices and areas of flow separation are prevented; said winglet transition section having prescribed curvature limits whereby practical achievement of surface aerodynamic loadings required for minimum drag are permitted.
**As to the comment below:
IANAL is a Usenet and chat abbreviation (acronym) for "I am not a lawyer"
As to IPBiz itself, "TINLA," wherein TINLA, stands for "This is not legal advice"
The first claim of US 5,348,253 states:
A blended winglet attachable to a tip of a wing; said wing having an upper and a lower surface, a leading edge and a trailing edge; said wing leading edge and trailing edge being the fore and aft intersections of said upper and lower surfaces; said blended winglet comprising a curved transition section and a near-planar section contiguous with said transition section; said near-planar section having a cant angle measured from the normal to said wing and prescribed within limits to provide a desired drag reduction for minimal structural weight; said winglet projecting at an angle to the wing plane and having an upper surface and a lower surface, a leading edge and a trailing edge; said winglet leading edge and trailing edge being the fore and aft intersections of said upper and lower surfaces of said winglet; said wing and winglet upper and lower surfaces defining a solid having streamwise cross sections of airfoil shape; said airfoils having thickness camber and twist variations to provide optimum aerodynamic loading of said surfaces; said winglet leading edge and trailing edge having a varying streamwise spacing and varying monotonically within prescribed limits whereby the formation of vortices and areas of flow separation are prevented; said winglet transition section having prescribed curvature limits whereby practical achievement of surface aerodynamic loadings required for minimum drag are permitted.
**As to the comment below:
IANAL is a Usenet and chat abbreviation (acronym) for "I am not a lawyer"
As to IPBiz itself, "TINLA," wherein TINLA, stands for "This is not legal advice"
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 2:38 AM
1 Comments:
IANAL!
The patent describes the generic process of finding an (any) optimal form under a set of objectives and manages to insert the word winglet on the way.
this is in my understanding not patentable and has prior art to boot.
Even in the world of wingtip devices Gratzers work is not the first or standalone in any way. von Hörner alone did very major work in the fifties.
Later NASA did a range of test ( forex on the KC135 ), you can find independent work from Europe too.
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