The important thing isn&#x27;t that you can now build a clone (it was scrapped for good reason: satellite retrieval never picked up and there are cheaper ways to get things into space and people in and out of space) but that the technology used in it is now free to use in your new spaceship. Boeing can&#x27;t come by and say &quot;sorry, you can&#x27;t do that, patented&quot; because you can point to NASAs patent for prior art.  You don&#x27;t even need to mess with getting NASA approval to use their patented system because the patent has expired.<p>This is the system working as designed: novel stuff gets patented and written down, temporary monopoly, then the patent expires and others can use it. It works less well when non-novel stuff gets patented, or when the industry moves so fast that the expiration term is disproportionately long, or when copyright gets extended and never expires.