The Manufacturer's Aircraft Association (MAA) was a trade association and patent pool of U.S. aircraft manufacturers formed in 1917. The U.S. military and other elements of the U.S. federal government pressured the Wright Company, the

Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decades ...

, and other manufacturers to form the association to break a patent logjam that was preventing U.S. manufacturers from making airplanes that the U.S. military could use in World War I. Legally, the MAA was a private corporation which had an agreement with the airplane manufacturers to cross-license their patents without substantial royalties. The MAA was dissolved in 1975.

History and records

The U.S. entered World War I in 1917. The two major U.S. companies holding aviation patents, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of new airplanes, which were desired for the war effort. The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, formed by then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization, the MAA, in 1917. The association was designed as a patent pool which drew up a

cross-licensing agreement A cross-licensing agreement is a contract between two or more parties where each party grants rights to their intellectual property to the other parties. Patent law In patent law, a cross-licensing agreement is an agreement according to which two ...

to allow manufacturers to have unrestrained use of airplane patents in order to produce airplanes for the government's war effort. Early members included aviation pioneers Orville Wright and Glenn Curtiss, as well as representatives of major aircraft manufacturing units in the United States. Frank Henry Russell participated in the MAA's formation and was elected its president, which he remained until his death in 1947. Records of the MAA are archived among the Transportation Collections of the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center, in Laramie, Wyoming. Those records reportedly document the history of aircraft, and document the relationships of the MAA with its various members, the military, and the U.S. Congress. They include records related to the aircraft manufacturing industry's principal trade associations: the

Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identifies ...

of America, Inc. (1920-1943), and the

Aerospace Industries Association The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) is an American trade association representing manufacturers and suppliers of civil, military, and business aircraft, helicopters, UAVs, space systems, aircraft engines, missiles, material, and related c ...

, Inc. (AIA) (1952-1975)."Transportation Collections,"
American Heritage Center, Univ. of Wyoming., retrieved 2016-07-09Inventory of the Manufacturers Aircraft Association records, 1843-1979,"
Rocky Mountain Online Archive (RMOA), University of New Mexico, retrieved 2016-07-09 The online inventory of those MAA records provides an introductory section with additional information on the history of the MAA.

References

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External links

Manufacturers Aircraft Association records
at the University of Wyoming – American Heritage Center
Blog posts related to MAA
on th
AHC blog site
Aerospace Trade associations based in the United States Patent pools

History and records

See also

References

External links