Quote:
Originally Posted by elcreative
I sincerely hope that you're joking... Arthur C. Clarke wrote about them in a magazine (non-fiction) in the late 1940's and couldn't patent the idea at the time because it was an unimplementable...  |
I was about to post a reply correcting this, as I was taught in a college Science Fiction class that Clarke's lawyer convinced him not to patent it, and therefore he no longer trusts lawyers. Turns out, Clarke tells a different story.
Wait... the correction on the original post is that he did not invent geosynchronous orbits, he invented the idea of putting a minimum number of satellites in specific positions so they maintain a line-of-sight with each other, this giving full coverage of the earth... seen in
Independence Day.
Okay, here's the quote:
Quote:
I have often been asked—usually pityingly--why I made no attempt to patent the communications satellite. Perhaps the most truthful answer is that I never really expected to see it in my lifetime; I also (though in more cynical moments I am sceptical about this) seem to reccall thinking that it was an idea for all humanity, so I should publish to prevent anyone else from taking out a patent. As indeed I did…
I learned from my patent attorney that even if I had tried to patent communications satellites in 1945, the patent would have been rejected because the required technology did not yet exist, and the patent wouldn’t have been worth getting because its life would only have been 17 years. The patent would have expired the year before Early Bird was launched.
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Wikipedia (ugh) says that he didn't patent becuase he claimed "a patent is a license to be sued." This came from a very late-in-life interview. I suspect Clarke's recollections have changed multiple times over the years.
-Pie