As I have been informed from the US Copyright/Patent office and an Attorney, licenses apply to either a patent or copyright. An extensive search in the copyright record files came up with nothing and the original Goldberg plans have no copyright on them. Thus public domain. My rendition of this model is drawn on AutoCAD by me which carries a registered copyright for me. For assurances and not to step on any toes this design deviates in excess of 10% per the newer copyright rulings passed in the 1980's.
If the plans deviate 10% or more from the original then there is no copy right infringement. so you are good to go
Bob -- I wish you the best... I've been supplying folks with restored Senior Falcon plans for a while and I have a couple of points on the deal...
1-- The copyright office and your attorney did you a disservice if they didn't mention that registering a document in some copyright record files is useful, but it is not at all required for someone to own a copyright. Not being in the files does not imply that an article is in the public domain at all. That's spelled out clearly on the copyright office web site.
2-- How do we measure 10% of an airplane design and where does the guideline come from? In title 17 of the US Code (which is the governing law), the derivative works section was last updated in 1988 and contains no 10% rule. It says simply that the subject matter of a copyright includes compilations and derivative works... in other words, if I derived a plane from a CGM design, then CGM or their assigns owns the rights to my plane -- or at least to the parts they provided. (So, if the shape and size of the plane is identifiably Senior Falcon, then they own that.)
BTW -- some of the guys here have copies of Senior Falcon plans that I restored... the copyright law also says that rights to a restored property reside with the owner of the original... so that CGM et.al. own the rights to my restorations as well. Carl Goldberg Models specifically permitted me to pass along those copies. I never asked the for permission to sell them (I try and just recoup expenses), I only asked for permission to reproduce and distribute them to people who would build the plane -- to which they agreed.
Anyway, it's a great airplane and I'm glad it'll go back into kit production. And like Skylane said, there's a long and accepted history in modeling of people sharing the creative property of other people... and it's been a friendly fraternity in which that's been at least condoned. But that doesn't stop it from being other people's property. I just don't think we should share other people's property without knowing that's what we're doing.
So again, nice work and I wish you the best.