The brothers now ceased public flying for a while, to attend to the business of manufacturing and selling their craft. They formed an American company, enlarged their facilities for constructing machines, procured grounds for training operators, and prepared generally to fill orders both for aëroplanes and for public exhibitions. Not the least of their labor was to defend their patent claims, which they wished to be interpreted so broadly as practically to exclude all flyers whose lateral poise is controlled by changing the angle of incidence of the wings, or of lateral stabilizing planes. This was not an easy undertaking, since the torsion wing was a well-known device, having been described many times in public print, and having figured in earlier patents and experiments in various countries. To add to the difficulty, their patent claims apply specifically to the warping of normally flat sustaining surfaces, the warping of arched wings having been patented by Prof. J. J. Montgomery, whose invention antedates theirs.[51] However, if they produced no novel and radical invention in aviation, they, like Santos-Dumont in aëronautics, were first to achieve some measure of practical success, by applying a light automobile engine to a familiar machine in which former inventions and ideas were skillfully employed. On this ground of practical success they strove for an interpretation broad enough to establish a monopoly covering even Montgomery’s rights, which apparently they were infringing. But when to this end they applied for a preliminary injunction restraining Curtiss from using his system of control, and Paulhan from using Farman’s system, they were unable to convince the court of the justice of their petition, and the injunction suit was vacated. CHAPTER XI STRENUOUS COMPETITIVE FLYING The cardinal allurements in aviation for 1909 were the prize offered for the first flight across the English Channel, and the prizes to be won at the world’s first aviation meet, scheduled for the last week in August of that year, at Rheims, France. The desire to win these honors stimulated to livelier effort the most noted designers and operators of aëroplanes, all of whose machines were represented at the great tournament. It also brought into sudden prominence several new aviators. Young men, little versed in the science or literature of flight, took to wing, and in a few days found themselves world-famous. Aërial chauffeurs, skillful and daring, delighted vast throngs of people, kept the cables warm with news, and incidentally filled their purses with money. Thus the trade of aëroplane jockey was one of the interesting products of this eventful year.