Another engine patent war is brewing on the horizon. Rolls-Royce has plans to offer its UltraFan to Boeing for the proposed New Midsized Aircraft (NMA). But the UltraFan contains a power gearbox: a technology that Pratt & Whitney asserts is protected under a generic patent for a geared turbofan engine.
P&W president Bob Leduc says that if Boeing selects the UltraFan for a future NMA, he could move to defend his company’s intellectual property.
Airbus
It would not be the first time P&W accused Rolls of cheating. In 2010, P&W appealed to the US International Trade Commission to block Boeing from importing Trent 1000s for the 787-8 over a patent claim, but the issue was settled a year later.
One year on from that, GE Aviation made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to overturn P&W’s broad claim over geared turbofan technology, arguing that it, too, had shown prior art, by experimenting with a NASA-funded geared fan in the late 1970s.
Rolls may have an even better legal rebuttal to P&W. In addition to experimenting in the late 1960s with the geared M45SD turbofan, the UK manufacturer and P&W worked together for several years on the geared SuperFan engine.
It is a pity that such collaborations seem like ancient history. If P&W and Rolls want to wrest GE’s grip from Boeing aircraft, maybe they should work together.
Source: Flight International
