IP protection and publication of discovery

Glad to see you back here, Me356.

Try to identify those processes and procedures, structure or mechanisms that advance your technology over that of those you may have originally been simply trying to replicate. Surely there are certain incremental, or even profound, improvements you have made. These are the possible bases for claims under patent law. Good claims that are novel and contribute to efficiency / utility can be profitably patentable. If you suspect someone else already has a patent on one or another aspect of your novel ideas, first search the literature extensively.... if you cannot find anything that is close to your novel approaches, then by all means seek patent counsel who will surely instigate a more thorough search, especially of the scientific, engineering and patent literature.
You can still patent if your innovation only improves functionality, as long as it is in ways that are "non-obvious" to practitioners in the art. Surely the bleatings of poor Hank here constitute evidence that your innovations may well be quite "non-obvious" (For that reason alone, I hope you archived his pleadings and comments in some way).

I know from reading here that you have some other sort of business. If in the US be sure that you make a good effort to apply for your patent under the "small entity" provisions. The initial and maintenance fees are much more reasonable for individuals and "small entities".

I am reluctant to say this, because I am very curious as well, but you must not reveal any patentable advance you have made until you are well into the patent application process-- and then only at the advice of counsel. The timing rules for publication vary in the US system v. much of the world. Out of an abundance of caution keep your EU and WIPO options completely open by continuing your wise course of silence. If you want to be an planetary hero, perhaps you can go the open source route. It certainly has not hurt Unix, Linux, Linus Thorvalds, Samsung, Google etc that they melted Microsoft's deathgrip on software via the largely open source approach as it matured into the smart "device" era.

me356,
Good to hear from you! If your goal is not to directly make money from your inventions, but instead to allow others to use and/or extend/develop them, then I would argue that you should write up and publish in as much detail as possible your results so that they become public knowledge. (You could for example publish on "arxiv" and at the same time submit to a regular journal such as the Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/CMNS.htm.) Of course, I would guess there is nothing that could stop someone from trying to patent specific improvements or modifications but unless these are uniquely enabling, it seems likely that this would not pose a problem. If your goal is just to make money from your inventions, then your best bet is to sell your IP to a company just as Rossi has done. The third possibility is that you could start your own company with the backing of investors just as Godes and Mills have done, but I would guess that in that case you would want to file patents as well as keep much of your IP secret.

Quote from quizzical

If your goal is not to directly make money from your inventions, but instead to allow others to use and/or extend/develop them, then I would argue that you should write up and publish in as much detail as possible your results so that they become public knowledge. (You could for example publish on "arxiv" and at the same time submit to a regular journal such as the Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science

The Patent Office used to allow parties to put information into the public domain with a non-patent. That is to say, a person or company that made a discovery could inform the P.O. with a document that was made public, but it was not a patent application. It gave the discoverer no rights, but it precluded others from filing a patent. Companies would do this for discoveries they considered unimportant or unprofitable, but which they did not want rivals to discover, patent, and then charge them for.

I do not know if this service is still available. David French would know.

me356 - you should consider consulting a practicing EPO patent attorney if you truly believe that you have something that needs to be protected. The prior art that is already in the public domain after 28 years of LENR experiments is significant. If you truly have something unique and want to be in position to exploit (in the IP sense of that term) once you learn more then you may want to consider trade secret with a supporting patent strategy for controls, power extraction, safety, etc... There is always the open source route which has always been a serious option for IH. What is needed is 4+ sigma of verified results. If you are that far above the noise of your system, provided that the system is calibrated, then you are in position to enter or lead the pack. Go get 'em!

@me356

Here is my uneducated opinion -

1 - Patents do not work. They will only provide you a time lead. The time it takes for someone else to develop a variant of your product is the time you get to make money (as a monopoly). After that you still make money (because of the brand), but now you must compete with low priced and better products.
2 - If it is a physical phenomenon, it cannot be patented. You can patent embodiments and applications. But someone else will come up with another embodiment and application very soon. A patent can try to cover all embodiments using legal language, but people will make their own version anyway and prefer to fight in the court for years, because they will be making billions anyway, no matter what the judgement is.
3 - Some countries can legally allow production of the product, even if it is patented, and if it is for public benefit (such as life saving drugs).
4 - Many countries do not respect patents, these are also powerful manufacturing hubs.
5 - Your patent will possibly infringe on other past patents. There are hundreds of lenr patents.

Bottom line : You cannot stop copying and improvisation of your product by others.

The only way is to release a lower version in the market (say with low COP) and wait for a few years till the copy cats invest most of their money in the lower version. Release your improved version after that. This will give you even more time. But it will also get copied. Just repeat till you are a billionaire. You will of course need big partners to do this. Do not have a single partner, keep many options.

There is one other way. Release your invention as open source hardware (search google for it). It has a GNU type license. Here you license it as open source, but reserve the use for some heavy applications (such as military). The big boys usually pay because they are backed by governments and cannot violate the license. You product will get copied widely, but you will still earn a good money from legal entities (military, gov, public sector companies etc).

Remember that you cannot monopolize it, but you can benefit from it hugely. Keeping it secret will only delay it and you may end up inside big sharks. Rossi is a good example of what not to do.

All the best ! and thanks for your efforts in this research.

Quote from Tarun

Remember that you cannot monopolize it [open source hardware], but you can benefit from it hugely. Keeping it secret will only delay it and you may end up inside big sharks. Rossi is a good example of what not to do.

In line with this thought, the authors of open source software (to mention another industry) have often made money on their inventions. Also good to note that there are two basic open-source licensing approaches: the GPL-type licenses, which require derivations to also be open-source in order to be commercialized; and the MIT/BSD-type licenses, which do not place such a restriction on the derivations. The GPL-type licenses are more restrictive, while the MIT/BSD-type license are more permissive.

If your primary concern is about receiving credit and not having your ideas stolen and claimed by someone else, my uneducated guess is that an open-source license together with a clear disclosure of some kind will accomplish this. Someone like David French will be able to speak to this question authoritatively.

Would be Nice to have some kind of "non profit" organisation maby sponcered by crowd funding where scientist could be helper
tot keep their inventions "open source".
If the quark-x would be very easy to replicatie it will be almost impossible tot keep this in hand annyway.

Watch Richard Stallman as a good source of inspiration !

Me356: If your goal is to keep others from patenting and controlling this phenomenon, publish in complete detail, and as widely as possible the physics involved, that is the experimental description of the physical properties involved and any theoretical explanation. At the same time, publish in complete detail, and as widely as possible any and all instantiations of using this physical force. In this case be as general as possible describing any and every way you can think of to generate or utilize the energy produced. Invite other like minded researchers to follow the same protocol as quickly as possible. Public domain knowledge, and any prior art will be large barriers to basic patents. Specific designs and improvements will still be patentable, so nothing is perfect. You can still patent improvements or specific designs for steam engines, but not steam engines as a class of device. The sooner you do this, the more impact it will have. I know that laws can be and are peculiar and no simple formula is foolproof, but this formula will basically let the genie out of the bottle. Other than freeing it completely, like this, you can attempt to control it completely by getting very basic patents and then issuing free licenses to any and all comers. SInce you appear to really have made this breakthrough, ANY WASTE OF TIME increase the chances that the decisions will be taken out of your hands entirely. It's as simple as that, and I ask any brighter and more experienced folks on this site to offer a better formula for achieving your stated goals.

I would recommend a publication in book form. By using a pseudonym your privacy would be maintained.

- You could self-publish your book using a pseudonym via Amazon.
- You will not be bound to any formal scientific style
- You can explain your experiments and findings in very detailed form to prevent patentability and also mention some possible applications
- You can give background info and tell the readers about your way to your discoveries, if you'd like to so
- You keep the copyright to your book
- You can obtain sales revenues for funding your further research
- A patentability of the content will be prevented

Furthermore you can decide anytime later whether you want to publish your real name to your pseudonym.

me356:

In the case of LENR discoveries there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Sharing general principles openly by publishing will will not prevent others to patent specific applications that use these general principles.
• LENR will also be used for nasty military applications. Patenting general principles will not stop governments to apply them even when they don't get a license
• You can just write up your insights and publish them e.g. here in the forum. From that moment onwards it will be prior art and therefore cannot be used for patenting the same principles.
• You suggested that in some countries prior art can be patented. The PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) covers most part the world (148 countries). PCT recognises any prior art found to prevent it from patenting in any of the countries that are member of the PCT.

Quote from robwoudenberg

me356:

In the case of LENR discoveries there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Sharing general principles openly by publishing will will not prevent others to patent specific applications that use these general principles.
• LENR will also be used for nasty military applications. Patenting general principles will not stop governments to apply them even when they don't get a license
• You can just write up your insights and publish them e.g. here in the forum. From that moment onwards it will be prior art and therefore cannot be used for patenting the same principles.
• You suggested that in some countries prior art can be patented. The PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) covers most part the world (148 countries). PCT recognises any prior art found to prevent it from patenting in any of the countries that are member of the PCT.

Back in 2011, I identified lithium as Rossi's catalyst. Does that invalidate Rossi's patent since the use of lithium or any of the alkali metals are the LENR catalysts and therefore are prior art.

See post as follows:

Patent office dispute between Piantelli and Rossi?

Quote from axil

Back in 2011, I identified lithium as Rossi's catalyst. Does that invalidate Rossi's patent since the use of lithium or any of the alkali metals are the LENR catalysts and therefore are prior art.

See post as follows:

Patent office dispute between Piantelli and Rossi?

Yes, that will be prior art that will prevent any claims having Lithium as an essential catalyst for LENR granted after you published it.

Personally, I doubt that Lithium plays an essential role. As Me356 also indicated, he does not need Lithium. The presence of Lithium may cause Lithium transmutations, but as we all know there are other transmutations possible (e.g. Nickel).

To add more personal thoughts: I think that UDH (Ultra Dense Hydrogen) is the key. Holmlid has already publications on that (and by that also prior art on how to produce UDH with catalysts he mentions).

To put some humor in the subject of prior art, have a look at a well known example of prior art that was first published in a comic book.