How does FAA type certification relate to intellectual property
rights?

Simple answer is that it doesn't .... not one little bit.


I did some more research, and it doesn't seem to agree with that. If
you could shed some light on your example I'd like to look it up.


The case in question is an interesting one. From what I can understand the
TC effectively became public domain with the demise of the company that held
the original certificate with no clear successor. The current producer of
the product then obtained the supporting data (reports and drawings) by
legal means because that data was also effectively in the public domain by
virtue of the fact that it was somehow donated to a large well known
institution and that institution sells copies of any of the data that they
hold. I hope that clarifies the situation.

I accept your point that the FAR's are specific WRT to the production of a
part under PC (i.e. you need to own or have licenced the TC). However there
is no such requirement for production under a type certificate only. However
21.47 does make it clear that you need a licencing agreement to produce a
part under an existing TC. This gets a bit grey when the entity who
apparently owns the TC no longer exists. I am not sure that the FAR's say
anything to clarify this situation.

However having said all that, the question asked was with repect to
intellectural property not product rights. Copyright law and patent law
protect intellectural property rights. Not a type certificate. OEM's
carefully guard their data to protect themselves from competition. If I got
all the data from a 0-235 including drawings and engineering reports it
would be a relatively simple matter to type certificate the engine again
under Part 33 using another brand name. What protects the original OEM from
being ripped off in this way is patent and copyright law ... not the fact
that they have a type certificate for the product.

I hope this clarifies what I was trying to say.