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Is anyone else disturbed by the activities of FlightPrep against Runwayfinder.com,
a little free online flight planner? They also went after Jepp/AOPA and other flight planners.
DISCLAIMER
I do not use FlightPrep or RunwayFinder.com. I have no opinion or judgment
on whether they are good, bad, or ugly. I am not an attorney or patent
examiner.
But I do have some familiarity with patents.
There is one US patent issued to Stenbrock and Everson, US patent number
7,640,098, Filed 25 September 2005 and issued 29December 2009.
http://www.pat2pdf.org/pat2pdf/foo.pl?number=7640098
The '098 patent has three independent claims and 20 dependent. The
independents are reprinted here:
1) 1. A process for generating a flight plan for preflight use by a
pilot, comprising: accessing over a computer network from a client
computer a Web page having a housekeeping frame and a selected
composite travel navigation chart from among plural selected composite
travel navigation charts stored at a server computer, each selected
composite travel navigation chart including a travel chart merged with
travel navigation waypoints, the travel navigation waypoints including
radio navigation aids; downloading the Web page with the selected
composite travel navigation chart from the server computer to the
client computer as a two-dimensional array of map tiles that include
up-to-date navigation data and cover an area over which a flight is to
be planned; indicating X, Y coordinates of each of a plurality of
navigation waypoints on the selected composite travel navigation chart
at the client computer; sending the X, Y coordinates of each
navigation waypoint to the housekeeping frame of the Web page; and
drawing over the selected composite travel navigation chart on the
client computer route line segments according to the X, Y coordinates,
as instructed by housekeeping frame of the Web page, to generate a
flight plan for preflight use by a pilot.
11. A process for generating a flight plan for preflight use by a
pilot, comprising: accessing over a computer network from a client
computer a Web page having a housekeeping frame and a selected
composite travel navigation chart from among plural selected composite
travel navigation charts stored at a server computer, each selected
composite travel navigation chart including a travel chart merged with
travel navigation waypoints, the travel navigation waypoints including
radio navigation aids; downloading the Web page with the selected
composite travel navigation chart from the server computer to the
client computer as a two-dimensional array of map tiles that include
up-to-date navigation data and cover an area over which a flight is to
be planned; indicating X, Y coordinates of each of a plurality of
navigation waypoints on the selected composite travel navigation chart
at the client computer; sending the X, Y coordinates of each
navigation waypoint to the housekeeping frame of the Web page; drawing
over the selected composite travel navigation chart on the client
computer route line segments according to the X, Y coordinates, as
instructed by housekeeping frame of the Web page, to generate a flight
plan for preflight use by a pilot; displaying on the client computer
less than all of the selected composite travel navigation chart that
is downloaded from the server computer; and scrolling across the
selected composite travel navigation chart at the client computer to
display a portion of the selected composite travel navigation chart
that was not previously displayed, without downloading from the server
computer as part of the scrolling the portion of the selected
composite travel navigation chart that was not previously displayed.
21. A flight plan generating method, comprising: providing a Web page
having a housekeeping frame and a selected composite travel navigation
chart over a computer network to a browser on client computer, the
selected composite travel navigation chart including a selected travel
chart merged with travel navigation waypoints, the travel navigation
waypoints including radio navigation aids; displaying at least a
portion of selected composite travel navigation chart in the browser
on the client computer as a two-dimensional array of map tiles that
include up-to-date navigation data and cover an area over which a
flight is to be planned; indicating X, Y coordinates of each of a
plurality of navigation waypoints on the selected composite travel
navigation chart displayed in the browser on the client computer;
sending the X, Y coordinates of each navigation waypoint to the
housekeeping frame of the Web page; and drawing over the selected
composite travel navigation chart in the browser on the client
computer route line segments according to the X, Y coordinates, as
instructed by housekeeping frame of the Web page, to generate a flight
plan for preflight use by a pilot.
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In other words, the patent claims some specific methods of using a web browser
and web server to deliver and display flight planning information. I
am not an expert
if flight planning software, but it would appear to me that there are
numerous ways
to work around the '098 claims.
If a competitor were using a method that might be considered to infringe, then
it might be a prudent business decision to stop doing it that way. They might
take their website down and redesign it so that it served the same purposes
without infringing. If they were just running a website for fun, it
might not be
fun anymore. Or they may wish to assert their rights to continue running
their website if they doubt the validity of the patent or the will of
the enforcer.
It is up to the involved parties to choose their actions.
-bob
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