Operation Reverse Twist
Bringing the drone industry together to defend against the coaxial rotor patent infringement claims by Nordic Unmanned.
Bringing the drone industry together to defend against the coaxial rotor patent infringement claims by Nordic Unmanned.
Nordic Unmanned is currently asserting a coaxial rotor patent (US Patent US8328128B2; EU Patent EP2035276B1) against several drone companies in Europe. Coaxial rotor design has existed long before these patents — and arguably, they should never have been granted at all.
These patents are expected to expire around 2027-2028. Once a patent expires, it enters the public domain. However, an expired patent can still be used to claim past damages. That is, damages from infringements occurring within the period from the patent’s effective filing date to its expiration date.
Defending a patent infringement claim is expensive. Especially in the United States, such litigation is not only costly monetary-wise, but also a major disruption to the businesses of the accused due to its punishing discovery and jury trial processes, regardless of whether the accused will be found infringing or not eventually. Thus, the better strategy is to proactively challenge the validity of these patents.
“An invalidated patent cannot be used to claim past damages.”
Even if the challenge does not result in a complete invalidation, a validity challenge with merits often results in the challenged patent being substantially narrowed, which could mean non-infringement for products that would otherwise be found infringing.
In 2017, Cloudflare was sued by Blackbird Technologies, a non-practicing entity (NPE), asserting a patent (US6453335) on basic proxy server concepts. Instead of settling, Cloudflare launched Project Jengo — a crowdsourced campaign to uncover prior art. The result? The asserted patent was invalidated, and over 30 of Blackbird’s other patents were challenged. Cloudflare later repeated this success against Sable Networks (Sable IP), another NPE.
This approach worked because the community stood together. The drone industry can — and should — do the same.
We’re calling on drone companies, developers, and innovators to form a united front against baseless patent aggression. Together, we can protect open innovation and defend the freedom to build, create, and fly.
Yoda once said, “A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”
In the same spirit, CubePilot believes: “Companies should use patents for innovation and defense — never for attack.”
To protect the open and continuous innovation in the drone industry, CubePilot is launching a Patent Bounty Pool — an open initiative inviting drone innovators and companies to join forces in defending fair innovation.
The asserted patents cover coaxial rotor technology, claiming features that have existed for decades.
“Coaxial rotor design has existed long before these patents - and arguably they should never have been granted at all.”
The patent claims describe a compact multi-rotor aircraft with at least three coaxial, counter-rotating drive units. They also include features around altitude and position control using individual rotor speed, redundancy, rotor protection, and autonomous flight systems.
Strength — How convincing the reference is in proving the idea was already known or obvious (e.g., a dated publication with clear technical detail).
The most valuable submissions are both strong and relevant — credible, detailed, and directly addressing the patented invention.
The following list shows the prior art references that have been considered in Office Actions, Invalidation Proceedings, internal research and so forth.
If you wish to contribute to the patent pool, contact CubePilot. The following shows the list of companies that are contributing to the patent pool along with their contribution amounts: