"But does the US Navy own the rights to the designs of that plane, or that aircraft carrier or that airbase or that delivery truck, just becasue they bought a plane, or a carrier, or an airbase, or a truck? Does the age of the thing matter?
Again, no. The company that designed the things owns those rights."
In these discussions, no one ever points out that the US Government could have obtained the rights to the designs, and frankly, in light of security issues, I'm not certain why they didn't. I'm a contracts lawyer for the state I live in, and whenever we bid for a design or development of a thing (usually software these days)...because it is being paid for through taxpayer dollars...we retain the rights to the design up front, or we go to the next qualified bidder. If it's a proprietary thingy (again mostly software) where we are essentially buying it off the shelf, the company retains the rights, because it was developed with private/corporate funds.
My understanding of aircraft development in the '30s and '40s is that the government put out specs for companies to design from, contractors submitted their product, tests were conducted, and contracts were let. I don't see why the government didn't retain the rights--presumably for good ol' capitalistic reasons--but nothing would have prevented them from doing so (unless the laws on the books at that time didn't allow it, but I haven't found anything supporting that possibility).
Of course if Uncle Sam did retain the rights, it still wouldn't help us out here, because the government wouldn't likely license those rights to the average Joe anyway. At least my state government doesn't.
My 2 cents.
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