European Planemaker Has Challenged Company's Patent On Winglets

The founder of Seatle, WA-based Aviation Partners says he will vigerously defend his company's patents for blended winglet technology being challenged by giant planemaker Airbus. The European company has made "Sharklets" one of the primary selling points for its A320neo, which it markets as being a more fuel-efficient airplane than the existing A320.

"We are certainly surprised by the lawsuit attempting to invalidate our patent on Blended Winglets after working closely with Airbus over the past five years," said Joe Clark, founder  and CEO of Aviation Partners, in a statment released Wednesday. "We have had many meetings with their engineering group and top executives, both in America and Europe.

"We have built and flown patented Blended Winglets on the Airbus A320 in Toulouse. We have flown them on one of JetBlue's A320s using JetBlue flight crews with excellent results achieved – a 5 percent fuel savings – all of this with the cooperation of Airbus.

"What I can tell you is that we will vigorously protect our patented technology and intellectual property, which is currently saving the world billions of gallons of fuel on Boeing, Dassault, Hawker, and Gulfstream airplanes.

"This is all about efficiency. We want to get our Blended Winglet technology on as many airplanes as possible to save as much fuel as possible. We are just trying to do our part in a changing world."

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