The U.S. entered
World War I in 1917. The two major U.S. companies holding aviation patents, the
Wright Company and the
Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of new airplanes, which were desired for the war effort. The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation from the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, formed by then
Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization, the MAA, in 1917. The association was designed as a
patent pool which drew up a
cross-licensing agreement to allow manufacturers to have unrestrained use of airplane patents in order to produce airplanes for the government's war effort. The online inventory of those MAA records provides an introductory section with additional information on the history of the MAA. == See also ==