Patent Law Practice Center

Aviation Innovation

We recently published an article about the pursuit of green aviation technologies on IPWatchdog.com. In researching for that article we found a number of interesting aviation innovations that did not squarely fit within the “green” umbrella.

For example, U.S. Patent No. 9096315, titled Apparatus for Recovering Kinetic Energy Released During Landing of an Aircraft After Contact with the Ground, and Method, issued to Airbus Operations of Hamburg, Germany. The apparatus for recovering kinetic energy during landing claimed here has an energy converter located in the nose landing gear or main landing gear; the energy converter has a compressed air container and a heat exchanger to create a thermal storage system. This technology is designed to collect some of the kinetic energy created when an aircraft lands and brakes in order to be used by the craft when it is taxied on the ground. This patent will certainly catch the attention of individual inventors who, at least based on my communications with inventors over the years, are always looking for ways to capture and use kinetic energy as a part of a vehicle, such as an automobile or truck.

According to U.S. Patents No. 9096314,the history of electric aircraft can trace its roots back to a French dirigible from 1884, which is interesting in and of itself. But the ‘314 patent, issued under the title Electric VTOL Aircraft, protects a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft having a system of electrically powered ducted fans which have their thrust controlled by a fan-driving motor; the system of fans is comprised of two pluralities of fans, one with a diameter which is 1.5 times the size of the other. The configuration of this fan system is intended to improve upon both the flight stability and the safety of conventional VTOL craft.

A family trio of inventors has developed a better technique for supplying power to electric aircraft, detailed within U.S. Patent No. 9090170, which is titled Self-Charging Electric Vehicle and Aircraft and Wireless Energy Distribution System. This patent was issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to Alex, David and Rena Mashinsky, all of Memphis, TN. It protects an electric-vehicle charging system with a secondary resonant coil connected to an electric vehicle and tuned to the same resonant frequency as a primary coil outside the vehicle and connected to a source of electrical power as well as a power-management system with a software module configured to control the power transfer rate. This system is a wireless inductive charging system much like ones we recently profiled in a recent IPWatchdog piece on wireless charging in electric automobiles.

Another electric aircraft technology is described within U.S. Patent Application No. 20150115108, issued under the title Aircraft Electric Motor System. This patent application, assigned to the Boeing Company, would protect an apparatus comprised of a controller that identifies an electric aircraft’s state as well as a group of recharging parameters based on the state of the aircraft’s electric motors for controlling the recharging of the power source. This system is intended to better monitor the performance of batteries powering motor equipment on an electric aircraft so that they can be replaced on a more effective schedule.

Finally,  we found a patent application covering an innovation that utilizes data analysis for better fuel performance in airliners. U.S. Patent Application No. 20150134187, titled Robust Systems and Methods for Improving Passenger Jet Aircraft Fuel Economy, filed by Alaska Airlines, Inc. (NYSE:ALK), of Seattle, WA, would protect a method for improving fuel economy on a passenger jet aircraft by receiving information from the craft including an exhaust gas temperature value for an auxiliary power unit in operation. The method determines whether the exhaust gas temperature value exceeds a certain threshold, sending a communication indicating an aircraft’s status for a future flight if the threshold temperature isn’t exceeded and updating a database to reflect changes in the aircraft’s status. This innovation enables the more effective use of auxiliary power units that provide power to subsystems on passenger jet aircraft by operating that unit only when required.