Gentleman

We have over 20 cases in which the person listed Gentleman, or some near translation thereof, on a patent or other official document as his professional or occupational designation. They may not always have been recognized members of any nobility. These individuals are generally landowners. In fact, "Land Owner", phrased exactly as such, comes up on British patents.^[1] There is some overlap with Landlord. A “privatier”, a well-heeled bourgeois, or at least “private person”, coming up in our data from the Hungarian “magánzó”, gets semantically patchy relative to any noble implications of Gentleman. These are all generally chosen self-descriptions. This is all of interest to us in terms of who funded the aero-experimentation, whether "leisure" was involved, as opposed to accomplishment, behind the filing of the patent(s). Very tentatively, we may assess some correlation between these and low quality patents. This would defy the opposite assertion, that fees, or greater fees, correlate with greater per volume patent significance or viability.

Ferdinand von Zeppelin, had the title "Graf"(Count), though he is always, or almost always, treated as a significant innovator, though there are counter-stories regarding von Zeppelin. We are dealing with indicators of correlation.