Walmart Seeks Patent for Warehouse Floating in the Sky

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 8:59AM EST · Published Aug 19, 9:20AM EDT

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Walmart Seeks Patent for Warehouse Floating in the Sky — © Thinkstock

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) apparently wants to move goods without the need for roads, trucks or airplanes. At least that is what a patent filing hints.

A document filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says:

In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful to transport unmanned aircraft systems to delivery products. In some embodiments, gas-filled aerial transport and launch system, comprises: a transport aircraft comprising: a gas chamber; and a carrier compartment where the gas chamber induces a lifting force on the carrier compartment; at least one propulsion system; and a navigation control system that controls the direction of travel of the transport aircraft; wherein the carrier compartment comprises: an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) storage area configured to receive multiple UASs; and an UAS launching bay that enables the UAS to be launched while the transport aircraft is in flight and while the UAS is carrying a package to be delivered.

The images filed with the paperwork include a diagram of the aircraft that looks very similar to the decades-old Goodyear blimp, which first flew in 1925.

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Bloomberg recently took note of the patent, and the fact that Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has filed similar patent paperwork.

The fact of the matter is that these ships may never be used. As Walmart and Amazon jockey for dominance in both brick-and-mortar retail and e-commerce, each has entered into a number of experiments, from drones to the delivery of goods at small, hyper-local store fronts. Amazon calls them convenience stores. They are merely convenient for people who do not want to wait for a package to arrive from Amazon. Better, for some, to go local and have it the same day.

The tracking for patents from Amazon and Walmart ultimately will turn out to be a great waste of time, just as it has been for Apple. For every hundred patents filed, only one may turn into a real product. Maybe.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.