Jemiba,
I don't have a patent yet, but I have filed a patent application. It got through the initial searches and has now been published on the web. Starting in August my patent attorneys will start the detailed filing in various countries. I think the sense is that if it has gotten this far, then with normal back and forth between my attorneys and the patent offices in various countries most if not all the claims will be allowed. Of course, that remains to be seen.
Yes, in the US in 1949 a Lloyd H. Leonard presented a paper DESIGN STUDIES OF VARIOUS TILTING FUSELAGE CONVERTIBLE AIRCRAFT at the 1st Convertible Aircraft Congress in Phiadelphia. He showed a number of possible configurations. Mine concept is shown in Figure 6.
A Ray Prouty who is a helicopter design consultant pointed this out to me after I had filed my patent application. Somewhat alarmed, I sent the information to my patent attorney. He replied (in part) "...it is possible that the Examiner could use this article as part of an obviousness rejection. However, although the Examiner may take a different position, I do not believe that the article either discloses the entire structure of your invention, or would meet the enablement requirement. Accordingly, I am not overly concerned that submitting this article would have a significant impact on the patentability of your invention."
When my attorney starts the detailed filing, which he calls the national phase, he will send a copy of that paper to the USPTO. He is required to do this as part of his relationship with the patent office.
I would say that the Leonard design is basically a concept whereas I have a design which is the enablement part that my attorney spoke about.
A key feature of my design is that I have worked out a way to transition from hover to cruise and back without climbing and diving and without using a large amount of installed power. It is so non-obvious that this is possible that I had serious difficulty in getting my aeronautical engineering cousultant to even analyze it. He wanted to make it dive to pick up speed and pull up to dissipate the speed - and back down a long way to land. Finally he agreed to analyze it and he validated my approach. I had done a lot of analysis myself, but it was a bit simplistic, so it was good to see someone with experience and well developed analysis tools have a go at it. His blade element theory method, when applied to helicopters, accurately predicts their performance because it has been developed with reference to helicopter data to do just that.
The Leonard concept does not address the transition problem; it only shows a diagram and discusses in the text the issue of directional stability. I trust that the patent office will agree that the Leonard disclosure is not enabling, that is, sufficient to permit someone to build and fly such a craft.
