A satellite missed its orbit. The problem can be fixed but, believe it or not, Boeing has a patent on using the moon, i.e. gravity, to change a satellite’s orbit! The patent probably wouldn’t hold up in court but because of a different lawsuit Boeing is threatening to sue anyway if the firm uses the procedure. Since the costs of a lawsuit are high and the satellite is insured, down it may come.
More here including interesting material on space salvage. Hat tip to Boing Boing. Tabarrok on patent reform here.
In honor of another fellow who tried to use the power of the state to limit the effects of the moon’s gravity, I suggest that we call this the “King Canute Patent.”
Actually the situation now appears to be a bit different that you present it:
The satellite, even if it uses the moon gravity procedure, will not have enough fuel to make it into geosynchronous orbit, making the satellite a lot less valuable than the cost to launch it. However, if the company is “forced” to deorbit the satellite, they will get the full value of the satellite from their insurance company, and launch another one.
The company launching the satellite WANTS to be a “victim” of the patent in this case!
Sounds like Rex Rhino is on to something, otherwise why wouldn’t the satellite owner direct the maneuver from outside the country when the satellite is not over the United States? U.S. Patents only cover making, using, or selling the invention within the United States.
Larry,
Have you read the patent? I imagine Boeing thought of this angle when drafting it, so it is likely the relevant steps take place on the ground.
So, Boeing thought they hung the moon?
I thought patenting business processes were pretty questionable. This is way beyond.
Shouldn’t patents protect the huge sunk cost investments in R&D that, once developed, can easily be copied by free riders?
I don’t think a common sense intention for them is to prohibit long distant future no-brainers.
I suspect that the Boeing people filed this patent application on April 1, and were as surprised as anyone when it was granted.
To fool this to the top of my inadquate legal bent:
- If Boeing unreasonably declined to grant a licence, are they not vulnerable to a claim for damages from any one predjudiced by the falling satellite?
- What quantum of damages would Boeing seek for patent breach? (Probably best expressed in Canadian dollars – known as “loonies”.)
- Is not Arthur C. Clarke’s original article on the possibility of artificial satellites conclusive prior art? I think I remeber (I have not read it for 50 years)that it refers to the need to allow for lunar gravity when positioning satellites.
- Why does the insurance company involved not tell the satellite owner to go ahead with the technique using lunar gravity, giving them an indemnity agains any suit by Boeing? They could then prempt Boeing by going to them and offering one loonie in concept of damages. If Boeing then sued, they would be liable for the insurance company’s legal costs if the Court were to take the view that there was a breach but it did not damage Boeing. I cannot see Boeing’s general counsel authorising suing in those cicumstances.
Incidentally, the same technique was used to legalize the patenting of software, even though algorithms as mathematics cannot be patented. Claims came to be drafted as follows:
An aparatus consisting of (1) a computer (or a CPU, or a memory) running (or containing) [description of algorithm].
The trick is that one combines very general prior art (e.g. a computer or spacecraft) that would constitute one of the few or sole practical ways to take advantage of the new and otherwise unpatentable algorithm or scientific discovery, with the new algorithm or discovery. Modern U.S. courts deem this combination to be both novel and patentable subject matter, even though the algorithm or discovery by itself is not patentable subject matter.
Technically, according to modern U.S. courts, the *algorithm* has not been patented because you can still perform it with pen and paper. And here the *discovery* of neat ways to use lunar gravity has technically not been patented, only the use of such a discovery on a spacecraft.
I describe this trick in more detail for software patents, and how this trick used to be prevented but no longer is, here.
The Supreme Court almost clarified this area of law in 2006, but then punted. So the liberal Federal Circuit law generally allowing such patents is still considered the law.
Whether the discovery about lunar gravity and orbits in question here was made by the patentees, or was novel or non-obvious (and thus, under modern doctrine, the claim as a whole) I have not investigated, and in any case none of what I have posted constitutes legal advice.
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Is it realistic?
I’d be interested to see how a patent was enforced since patents are only active in certain regions.
If the calculations and transmissions to the satalite where performed in a non-patented area (probably outside of US, Largge European Countries or Japan) then the patent would not be enforcable.
Any Patent Lawyer worth his (Massive) pay would have pointed this out and so given the go-ahead.
It’s more likely that the patented technique would not work properly in some way, shape or form so the company used it as emotional leverage in the concurrent law suite they were filing against Boeing.
-AS,
CEng.
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