Federal government forces patent sharing
A new law says nobody can sit on rocket patents anymore. Engine Lab is sitting on 400 of them.
Patent Office, EarthAs of Monday, any rocket patent that hasn't flown in two years can be licensed by anyone, for free. The government says it's about fairness. Engine Lab says it's about Engine Lab.
Station #12 filed 31 requests in the first hour. Then it filed 31 more in case the first ones got lost.
Some of those patents are very personal to us. One of them is a drawing my daughter did.
Engine Lab says it will appeal. In the meantime, a random design from its vault is now public. Nobody's sure which one. It might be the drawing.
