Original Wright Brothers Patent Documents Discovered After Nearly Three Decades

The National Archives reports that the original patent documents for the Wright brothers’ Flying Machine surfaced recently after having been mis-filed in 1979. The document was recovered after a targeted search of more than 269 Million documents maintained by the Archives. The discovery is timely, as the documents were due to be displayed next month during the 110th anniversary of the patent grant date. U.S. Patent No. 821,393 was filed in March of 1903, several months before the historic flight, which would have been good advice from the brothers’ patent attorney.