The fun thing is just going word by word and thinking up alternatives. So...
Toroidal:
- What adjacent shapes will provide similar efficiency without technically being a toroid?
Hub:
- Can we connect it to a "shaft" instead?
- What about adding a gearbox in between?
Tip connection:
- This specifically calls out connecting the tip of a leading propeller to a trailing body. This is where I'd probably focus first. Can you reverse it to connect a trailing propeller element to a leading element? Do you connect them back to the hub instead? What about a secondary/tertiary element?
Patents are more of a threat than a firm legal protection. A large company can tie up a small business in court until they're bankrupt, so it's really a matter of cost/benefit and how close you want to get to the fire you're playing with.
So basically the rules are, manufacturing in America is about lawyering patents, playing with fire, and being threatened by big companies who can bankrupt you whether you're copying their ideas or not. No wonder China is pulling ahead.
Patent law was mediocre idea turned into atrocity by lawyers. It just stifles the progress at each step with being "beneficial" only to big enough corporations that can brute force the system with lawyers
* The research was funded with public money, so everyone should benefit from the results.
* The one who did all the work (maybe even came up with the shape idea) was one of the interns. From my experience in industry and academia you will give away all your rights with your contract and get some pennies in return, while the department will get all the big bucks. Does it sound fair?
It'll get interesting once AI algos proliferate to other knowledge domains such as physics and engineering and start hallucinating solutions, as does GPT-3 now. Some of those solutions, adjusted and fine tuned, will have real world applications. How will patents be relevant then?
Toroidal: - What adjacent shapes will provide similar efficiency without technically being a toroid?
Hub: - Can we connect it to a "shaft" instead? - What about adding a gearbox in between?
Tip connection: - This specifically calls out connecting the tip of a leading propeller to a trailing body. This is where I'd probably focus first. Can you reverse it to connect a trailing propeller element to a leading element? Do you connect them back to the hub instead? What about a secondary/tertiary element?
Patents are more of a threat than a firm legal protection. A large company can tie up a small business in court until they're bankrupt, so it's really a matter of cost/benefit and how close you want to get to the fire you're playing with.