FlightPrep Attempts Damage Control

It used to be hard to get the aviation industry to get behind something important... but not-so-much anymore, as the power of the Internet appears to have handed an embattled aviation resource a bit of moral support as they dealt with the threat of legal action from a competitor who received a patent for technologies similar to theirs.

Barely 48 hours ago, RunwayFinder announced that they were shutting their site down because of legal threats from FlightPrep.com over alleged patent infringement. Within a day, RunwayFinder's Dave Parsons published an addendum stating that a compromise appeared to be in the offing and that RunwayFinder had won a reprieve. It didn't end there.

The damage appears to be heavy as far as FlightPrep is concerned. A massive amount of support rallied to the defense of RunwayFinder.com, while the patent holder, 'FlightPrep' attempted to post their defense/rationale on their corporate blog, shortly thereafter... but WITHOUT allowing comments onsite (and judging by comments elsewhere, they probably got tired of the invective... as for the moment, it would be hard to find a more unpopular aero-company than FlightPrep).

In a company statement addressed to the aviation community, FlightPrep starts its defense by noting that, "Lately FlightPrep has been in the news, some of it incorrect, with regard to our Online Flight Planning Patent. To this end we want to take this opportunity to clarify some of this misinformation and provide some general information and background about the company and what we do at FlightPrep." Some company history and self-congratulatory pontification follows before the company gets to the meat of its defense, stating, "When we launched the Online Flight Planner, there was nothing like it in the aviation industry. We were very proud to develop this technology and make it available to the aviation community. At the time we realized that it is impossible for us, and for that matter, any business, to develop the proprietary technology to provide useful products and services, while at the same time giving it away and remain a viable business. Thus, we filled for a patent in 2001 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As any inventor who has ever gone through this process knows, this is a very difficult and lengthy process without any guarantee of success. Fortunately, after a rigorous examination and considerable effort and expense, the USPTO issued a patent in 2009 for the process of generating travel plans on the Internet, what we all call online flight planning."

"In addition to providing online flight planning, our goal in obtaining a patent for our Online Flight Planner was to promote the technology and make it available to others though mutually beneficial transactions. It is not our intent to create a monopoly, put others out of business, or prevent others from participating in the aviation community. Since the patent was issued, we have been working diligently to offer the online flight planning technology to as many vendors who want to use it as possible. A careful review of all available information, including legal documents, press releases, patent applications, published editorial, and customer comments, should lead any reasonable person to conclude we have done this fairly and in good faith."

Of course, the aviation community has its own way of determining what it feels is fair and done in good faith... and so far, the web-war is definitely trending in favor of RunwayFinder.com -- a free flight planning site known to be favored by a number of general and sport aviation pilots and designed by a favored member of the Van's RV community.

While FlightPrep has shut down comments on its own blog, aero-community outrage has been swift and negative elsewhere, with sites like vansairforce.com pretty much tarring and feathering FlightPrep online. This, mind you, pales in comparison to the world of twitter where things got quite a bit more verbose... a sample of the passionate sentiment includes these not-so-friendly tweets:

• phreakmonkey K.C. Budd: flightprep forcing closure of sites like runwayfinder.com and flyagogo.net for offering free moving-map flight planning. Screw flightprep.
• FatesClown Xavier: @FlightPrep will not get another dime from me. What a BS patent. Many good sites vanishing.
• tendancer Paul Sanders: @FlightPrep I hope you lose every customer over this patent bs, I've lost you 5 already, more to come
• FiveFs Jeff Sites: Hadn't heard of @FlightPrep before. Won't use 'em ever now.
• bradc314 Brad Cleghorn: Never heard of @FlightPrep until today. Their site is dated & hard to use. Thankfully their lawyers have killed off the competition.

There's a number of others... but you get the idea. ANN has talked to FlightPrep's Patent Attorney, briefly, and is scheduled to speak to the fellow, Peter Haas, at length following the weekend... We're sure we haven't heard the end of this, so we'll keep you updated.

FMI: www.runwayfinder.com, www.flightprep.com, www.flightprep.com/license