American Heroes Became Patent Warlords - May 22, 1906

On May 22, 1906, Orville and Wilbur Wright received a patent for their flying machine and launched one of the most destructive legal campaigns in American industrial history. The same men who invented powered flight spent the next decade in courtrooms instead of workshops, and by 1917 the United States had no domestic aircraft fit for war. Both things are true, and the tension between them is a story we're still living with. This episode explores what happens when the right to protect an invention collides with the cost of doing so.