Rossi vs. Darden developments [CASE CLOSED]

    Quote from sigmoidal

    So, I guess we'll just have to completely disagree, because although Rossi was threatening, I don't think IH thought Rossi was seriously stupid enough to sue them.


    Having watched Rossi from a distance for several years, this kind of miscalculation on Rossi's part was not that surprising to me when it happened. But I do suspect it was a miscalculation, in the sense that I suspect Rossi was expecting IH to buckle and possibly settle. Or, if not a miscalculation exactly, perhaps something along the lines of a hail Mary.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Let me repeat that they told me about some of the technical problems. Nothing about business or contracts, or the fake company. It would be unethical for them to tell me that and I am sure they would not. I do not want to give the impression that anyone at I.H. betrayed company secrets, or revealed anything about contracts with Rossi or anyone else.


    The discussion was strictly technical. My impression was that Rossi was once again doing a sloppy, inconclusive test. The problems I heard about could have been fixed. I sincerely hoped he would fix them. As I have said here before, that is why I signed up for Lewan's symposium, which Lewan assured me would only be held if the results were positive.

    Yes, that is about what I heard.

    The problems could have been addressed and fixed.


    For some reason people think that things are black/white, either/or, now/or never. My understanding was that 1) IH did not take the work in FL as the GPT, 2) they hoped that Rossi would "get his act together" and correct the mistakes. They would love to be the ones holding the trillion dollar tech.


    If Rossi really had what he said, then why didn't he re-instrument and start again with correct protocol, open lab to IH instead of barring their engineer from entry, allow independent data collection,..... Answer their concerns and fix the instrumentation. (instead of throwing out steam pipes and barring views of the entire system fluid loop).


    He was warned early but went full steam ahead with his behind the curtain tricks. If I had 89 M on the line for a test, you bet I would make sure that the investors had complete unfettered access and would joyfully allow them to add their own instruments instead of discarding steam traps and instruments. I would also have multiply redundant measures of everything and backup data collection that they could directly access remotely in real time.

    Quote from ele

    In fact Rossi had to sue IH otherwise hi would lose any credibility with his other partners. No one would make serious relationship with somebody who simply give up to 89M$.


    This is of course advice that Machiavelli himself would give. But those who follow such advice will surely not be surprised if the favor is returned.

    Quote from IH Fanboy

    Now, given what we know, Darden was worried that things were going well for Rossi.


    That contradicts just about everything I've seen on the docket. I see IH doing triple back-flips trying to get anything working from Rossi.


    IH would have been thrilled to have any excess power, based on docket evidence and common sense.


    Where do YOU see that, or are you just making things up again?

    Quote from sigmoidal

    one possible exception: IH may have been promoting their portfolio of technologies as being more 'rosey' than they themselves believed, particularly some time after the beginning of 2015.


    I don't excuse the behavior at all, but this common behavior for VC funded startups in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, for example. Sort of a hand-wavy combination of great optimism together with trying to keep expectations low. Both a sales pitch and a status report.


    ETA: In the case of startups, it's probably not unethical in most cases; more along the lines of talking oneself up in an interview, which is the expectation and is compensated for in the interviewers' minds.

    Quote from sigmoidal

    That contradicts just about everything I've seen on the docket. I see IH doing triple back-flips trying to get anything working from Rossi.


    You mean it contradicts much of what we've seen in Darden's and Vaughn's depositions. All of the other contemporaneous evidence shows that they did have intriguing working devices built by Dameron/Rossi.


    Quote

    IH would have been thrilled to have any excess power, based on docket evidence and common sense.


    They were thrilled. Read the email evidence on the docket. They were so thrilled that they attracted tens of millions in investments.


    Quote

    Where do YOU see that, or are you just making things up again?


    Why don't YOU see that? I'm just looking at the evidence available to us on the docket? Why are YOU making things up? Why don't you point me to a single contemporaneous test report from IH stating that the reactor did not work. I challenge you.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I should think that Rossi's lawsuit would come as a surprise to anyone.

    You can think that all you want, and I agree it's chutzpah. But nevertheless IH seems to have been preparing for it well in advance, and a threatening letters were sent by Rossi's lawyer, Annesser, to Jones Day/IH. Here are some excerpts from that letter, dated December 14 from 264-14 (which was a response to a Jones Day letter sent on Dec. 4, which itself was a response sent by Annesser to IH on November 20 and from Rossi to IH on August 3, both of which warned IH about their alleged infringement of the license agreement):


    "IH's intentional infringement upon my client's IP cannot and will not stand.... Demand is again made that IH and IPH international, BV cease and desist such infringement and immediately withdraw all patent and/or PCT applications immediately."


    "Your statement that 'the total price has already been paid' is, in and of itself, an anticipatory breach of the License Agreement and is actionable."


    He suggests a meeting between the parties and says: "At such meeting, my client expects your client to provide reasonable assurances that it will perform in accordance with the License Agreement upon completion of the Guaranteed Performance validation."


    There is simply no way that IH was surprised by Rossi's lawsuit. They may have been surprised at the timing or some of the claims, but they could see it coming a mile away. They may have been aghast at his chutzpah, but not taken unawares. It explains all the precautions they were taking leading up to Rossi's filings with Murray etc., some of which I described in my previous post. By the way, note also that there is nothing in Jones Day's letter to indicate that IH considered any of Rossi's behavior actionable or a violation of the license agreement. So at least as of December 4, 2015, they do not appear to have been contemplating suing Rossi, though perhaps they were waiting on further evidence. We don't know. But my guess is they would not have sued him to avoid unwanted publicity as well as the time and money sink of such a lawsuit. Besides, these guys are angels, right?

    Quote from sigmoidal

    And anyway, YOU are the one saying 'suddenly lawsuit', so aren't you eroding your own assertion

    What? Where? When? No, I am not and did not. YOU are the one who wrote:

    Quote from sigmoidal

    Then Rossi sued them. You can bet that took them by surprise

    My post stated clearly and unambiguously that the lawsuit was not a surprise. Also see my response above to Jed. How am I the one saying 'suddenly lawsuit'? Are you gaslighting me or was this post made during your "temporary" excursion into knucklehead territory? ;)

    "An application in 2008 to patent the device internationally received an unfavorable preliminary report on patentability at the World Intellectual Property Organization from the European Patent Office, noting that the description of the device was based on "general statements and speculations" and citing "numerous deficiencies in both the description and in the evidence provided to support its feasibility" as well as incompatibilities with "generally accepted laws of physics and established theories." The patent application was published on 15 October 2009.

    On 6 April 2011 an application was approved by the Italian Patent and Trademark Office, which issued a patent for the invention, valid only in Italy. Under then-current Italian law, the examination of the application was more formal and less technical than for the corresponding PCT application.

    In March 2014 the US Patent Office replied to Rossi's US patent application with a provisional decision to reject it, saying "The specification is objected to as inoperable. Specifically there is no evidence in the corpus of nuclear science to substantiate the claim that nickel will spontaneously ionize hydrogen gas and therefore 'absorb' the resulting proton".



    Rossi has nothing of any "intellectual property" value (same with IH). An issued patent in ITALY (!), yea that's really valuable), and hoards of patent applications that are not worth the paper they're written on--they mean nothing unless/until granted, and judging from his track record of patents, experiments, data and physics, the ONLY ones that will be issued are in Italy (likely by leaving a milk-jar containing a pittance of his ill-gotten gains on the stoop of the an Italian bureaucrat), well, maybe also in Timbuktu, Fiji etc. They might however consider filing the patents, on the cylindrical kiln designs as turbo-hotdog cookers.





    Quote from guest111

    [...]

    Rossi has nothing of any "intellectual property" value (same with IH). An issued patent in ITALY (!), yea that's really valuable), and hoards of patent applications that are not worth the paper they're written on--they mean nothing unless/until granted, and judging from his track record of patents, experiments, data and physics, the ONLY ones that will be issued are in Italy (likely by leaving a milk-jar containing a pittance of his ill-gotten gains on the stoop of the an Italian bureaucrat), well, maybe also in Timbuktu, Fiji etc. [...]




    I suppose Rossi doesn't help in dissipating prejudice and stereotypes.

    And we Italians have a habit of self-deprecating ourselves which serves us right.

    Rossi's sale of his fabulous IP in the US closely recalls the sale of the Trevi Fountain in Rome to a rich American tourist in a famous* movie of the early sixties.

    (* in Italy, Fiji and Timbouctu)


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    This has become very active thread with over 750 posts in just 10 days! This makes it hard for any (new) one to form intelligent opinion on topic. Same goes with the docket with over 750 documents.


    Here are few tips and questions for newcomers and history researchers to consider:
    - Docket has documents for the court so they are generally more reliable than most of the postings here, which are more or less external analysis or biased quesswork. Read both sides of the story and try to form opinion from there as judges do.

    - Latest documents in docket are most relevant, since they are condensed view of the parties. Fastest way to browse through them is to click link above and in docket view click up arrow in top right corner to sort documents from newest to oldest, because name starts with the document number. Click into middle to document miniature to open it directly in browser view.

    - Fastest way to browse to next or previous document is open one to browser view and click highlighted < or > arrow in side of the document (concerns only pdf documents in docket, others you can skip)

    - Also some oldest documents are fruitful for researchers and hobbyists, since they contain also unfiltered facts, like mails that attorneys have succeeded to seal away from court proceedings in later phases.

    - This thread offers great source for many kind of analysis. One could try to identify Goals, Roles, Tactics religious behavior and so on.

    - Of course most of the posters here are just honestly interested on LENR and speculating around it.
    - It would be fruitful ask yourself good untouched questions against docs.


    My favorite list of open questions (and my opinion) is:

    - Is Rossis explanation of second floor radiator trusworthy after he had to admit under the oath that JMP customer was just empty shell company and not a single piece of evidence? Not in my opinion.

    - Is Rossis 3rd party testimony report be trusted after its calculations has been based mostly on Rossi says of pipe lengths and diameters where nobody have photo or video evidence on? No, you cannot base it on Rossi says in my opinion.

    - IH:s real goal on this? Are they honest world savior or hidden agenda to control possible LENR market and technology release schedule? I believe that latter one, remembering they also what did against other researchers. Funding them with few k$ on their research just to keep them under NDA was cheapest way to control LENR to market

    - IH:s ethics by hiring Israeli people to put pressure on Italian scientists? Very ugly busines ethics, no matter did court seal the mails or not. I would keep far away from such partners when so much is on stake.

    - IH partner Mr Weaver sending threatening mail to Swedish professors. Was he lonely rider or planned action. Hard to tell, but IMO based on what he has posted on these forums, I would say lonely rider, but in the other hand looking at so different writing style points strongly on very planned action with the 'boys'.

    - IH:s APCO connections only seen in one Mr Dardens mail recipient list. Is APCO running the posting flood in this thread. Maybe not, but some could find patterns here (lets see does discussion now quickly turn again to endless pipe diameter or rust in glass pipe argumentation thus meaning both parties are hired to do that , sorry IHFB and Jed :/

    - Is Rossi plain fraud with nothing real in his E-Cat technology just trying to steal 90 m$ from honest investors. Could be, considering his history, but LENR has become so big topic that there shouldn't be so much smoke without fire. Does Rossi have it is another question. IMO he might have something, but I believe only after I see it proven by independent researchers using open science principles a'la MFMP.

    - Why is IH not willing to sell IP back to Rossi, or was Rossis offer real, since there is no hard prof in court documents, just Rossi says. That would be easiest proof, public binding offer from Rossi and IH:s public reply. I doubt we will never see it.

    - Is this just fight over issue IH now controlling only partial IP, where Rossis HotCat, Quark-X ... younameit, would offer him escape route form IH:s control and to wide release of LENR for better good for human kind? If this would be true, I would forgive Rossi and IH all bad thing they have committed to but not holding my breath waiting.

    Since time to place our bets is closing anyway. I will place mine just for the record. I think that Rossi is on thin ice especially with lack of evidence on claims about second floor buildup and ruse of JMP shell. Depends bit on does it go to jury or does Judge kick this off before that. With current evidence only in front of jury Rossi would have slight chances.


    But what else. Rossi could draw rabbit from hat in last day by publishing independent test results of E-Cat made by accredited (Swedish, German?) research institute added by Quark-X results. Nobody would care a horses shit what court ruling would be then. This is option only if he has something, and with this little evidence it is hard to have faith anymore,


    At the end of the day, what this all mean to parties? If Rossi loses he will lose everything for good, nobody invests a dime on his endeavors after that. His only chance is either to win in court or show something cooking in his magicians hat.


    What about IH then. Winning this case would save them some money and reputation, and spreading their reputation might help them to get recognized by willing partners. But I also think that their claimed nasty history cannot go without affecting on how potential customers would value them if competing technologies becomes available. Voting with your wallet is greatest of all powers as you can see in recent public cases in airline industry. I have seen too much corporate world to believe on their 'humanity' or any other power against them.


    Quote from Argon

    Fastest way to browse through them is to click link above and in docket view click up arrow in top right corner to sort documents from newest to oldest, because name starts with the document number.

    Nice summary overall, Argon! One thing to add about the best way to view the court documents: Abd Lomax (no relation to Chris, I presume) has posted an extremely helpful and uncharacteristically brief summary of each document with links here: http://coldfusioncommunity.net…en-docket-and-case-files/

    Quote from guest111

    hoards of patent applications that are not worth the paper they're written on--they mean nothing unless/until granted, and judging from his track record of patents, experiments, data and physics, the ONLY ones that will be issued are in Italy


    Except that the US granted him a patent in August 2015. Though now I'm being told that is not worth the paper it's written on. Whatever happens, one thing's for sure: the lawyers make out like bandits.

    So; I'm trying to summarise the views from the few here who reckon IH is the Evil empire (or something more or less similar).


    As far as I can see, they all think that Rossi LENR works. That is an attractive idea, and perhaps an inability to give up hope is what distinguishes them from others, though I guess they would not see it that way.


    What differentiates them is why they hold this idea. I think there are three possibilities:

    (1) They were convinced by early demos that Rossi is the real deal, the amateur positive results from Lugano-style reactors confirm this, and have never changed this view (type 1)

    (2) They see the Penon data is being conclusive, even though previously they were not sure (type 2)

    (3) They see the initial involvement of IH as being conclusive - they must have done DD - and further reckon that IH statements now can only be explained as a cunning plan to defraud Rossi and so (ironically) IH saying Rossi's stuff does not work now proves more conclusively that it does work. (type 3)


    My guess here is that:

    Wyttenbach, Ele are type 1. Wyttenbach however does not see Penon data as conclusive, Ele does.

    IHFB, Joshg are type 3.


    I don't know of anyone who is type 2 - I think it pretty unlikely there would be such given the flaky nature of the test, but if there is it would be good to know?


    If I've got this wrong and misrepresented anyone I apologise - I'm sure they will correct me. I also realise these are not hard boundaries, someone might be mostly convinced as in (1) but have their conviction reinforced by IH (3). I think a lot of people were in this position before IH announced that they could not replicate Rossi, and that some of those have not changed their view now fitting IH statements now into an IH is the Evil Empire meme to explain the schism.


    What is interesting here is whether the conviction that Rossi-LENR works comes from the IH involvement, or from the combination of Rossi's demos, "independent tests" and the few positive amateur replications.

    Quote

    At the end of the day, what this all mean to parties? If Rossi loses he will lose everything for good, nobody invests a dime on his endeavors after that. His only chance is either to win in court or show something cooking in his magicians hat.


    I suspect that Rossi will have a story about how he has been mistreated by IH, and a few will believe it and continue to invest in him. However, serious people (like IH and Woodford) will look at the history and stay clear.



    Quote

    What about IH then. Winning this case would save them some money and reputation, and spreading their reputation might help them to get recognized by willing partners. But I also think that their claimed nasty history cannot go without affecting on how potential customers would value them if competing technologies becomes available. Voting with your wallet is greatest of all powers as you can see in recent public cases in airline industry. I have seen too much corporate world to believe on their 'humanity' or any other power against them.


    If LENR ever works and so competing technologies are available IH would I think be delighted. They see that as a goal which is quite a way off. In that case I'm sure they'd like to be in pole position but they probably reckon since they are the only player so far this is likely and anyway there will be room for a lot of people in the brave new future, and they would have first mover advantage.

    Quote from joshg

    Except that the US granted him a patent in August 2015. Though now I'm being told that is not worth the paper it's written on. Whatever happens, one thing's for sure: the lawyers make out like bandits.


    Lawyers sure do.


    I'm surprised you would be surprised at US granted patents being worthless though. There are an awful lot of US granted patents. Nearly all are never used. And patents existing is no validation at all of the technology - if that were to be the case it would make granting patents much more expensive! Patents tend to work because people do not bother to patent stuff that does not work. But, there are some exceptions...


    While I agree with this, I still don't think they would have been clear Rossi would sue. There is a big difference between a bully threatening, and getting into a fight with an obviously strong opponent. Rossi might reasonably hope that IH would cave in, and certainly was foolish to sue when they did not. He will end up much poorer than had he kept quiet. But, having said that, IH must surely have known that Rossi sueing was a real possibility and would have taken what precautions they could.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    While I agree with this, I still don't think they would have been clear Rossi would sue.


    There you go again twisting what I said. I never said or claimed that they would have been clear Rossi would sue. I simply said that they were not surprised. Those are not mirror opposites, and I can see you agree with me. So why distort my position by creating a straw man?


    Speaking of distorting my position:


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    IHFB, Joshg are type 3.... If I've got this wrong and misrepresented anyone I apologise - I'm sure they will correct me.


    Yes, I will correct you. My position is both in flux and also far more nuanced than your typology allows for. Instead of wasting my time correcting you, I will simply paste a recent post of mine from the playground, which does a pretty good job of laying out where I stand:


    "I don't know that IH is 'evil.' I believe there is (circumstantial) evidence that they engaged in dishonest business practices at least with respect to Woodford and the Chinese (which might nevertheless be legal according to the letter of the law). But dishonesty and shading the truth in business is part of the game. So that doesn't make them evil, just dishonest, though probably not more so than similarly situated companies (and here I guess I'm really talking about Cherokee). Incidentally, that reading of events is wholly compatible with the notion that Rossi has nothing and is simply a con man. [It also doesn't make Rossi's claims more credible just because IH says it ain't so.]


    "The circumstantial evidence for the notion that they are trying to stall or discredit LENR (i.e., that they are "evil") is extremely thin and requires a rather tendentious reading of the facts, I admit. But still and all that reading exists. I have a very cynical (or in my view, realistic) perspective of how power works in this topsy-turvy world of ours, so I am willing to entertain that possibility. In my view it cannot be summarily dismissed as a crazy "conspiracy theory." It awaits further evidence one way or the other. However I believe such a reading of the tea leaves is less compatible with Rossi the con man. It either means that they know Rossi really does have something (even if it's only 1.5 COP instead of 20 or 20,000 or whatever Rossi claims), or that they knew Rossi was a con man all along (or figured it out at some point) and used him to make LENR look ridiculous. Or hell, who knows, maybe that was Rossi's goal all along and IH merely gave an assist. At this point in my life, knowing what I now know, I am willing to consider any possibility, though some are much more likely than others. Bob Greenyer said that we cannot underestimate the forces aligned against LENR. I agree with him."

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