LENR Patents, Dr. Schwarz and the USPTO.

Quote from Shane D.

Second, the new evidence submitted by Swartz does
not cure the lack of enablement or utility. The new evidence
comprised reports by the Defense Intelligence
Agency (“DIA”), Defense Threat Reduction Agency
(“DTRA”), and other scientific articles."

I assume that refers to the DIA report here:

Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BarnhartBtechnology.pdf

That is an important report. People who want to know about cold fusion should read it. However, it does not constitute proof of Swartz's claims, or any specific experimental claims from other researchers. It is a general review. I too would reject this report as proof of Swartz's claims. He needs something much more specific that describes an independent test of his devices, and his claims. I think the court is entirely reasonable demanding this.

I do not reject Swartz's claims and I do not reject the DIA report, but they do not support one-another. They are too far removed in content and focus. Perhaps Swartz submitted this to show that cold fusion itself does exist, which is one of the issues the Patent Office raised. The DIA document does bolster that claim, although it does not establish it. However, it does not bolster the specific claim that Swartz's cold fusion device works. Suppose I were to ask a software vendor: "Does your file compare checksum program work with Japanese filenames?" And the vendor says: "Many programs do work with Japanese nowadays." That would be unhelpful. It would tell me nothing about this particular program. *

* Actual example. And no, it doesn't work with Japanese filenames, although many programs such as Microsoft Word on a U.S. computer does work with them.

Quote from Alan Smith

. . . but when you use fuels containing something between 15 and 30 ingredients, it's a real problem for a competitor to work out what's what- especially if different fuel components have different pre-treatment schedules. It would take years for somebody with a big lab to work out that one.

I do not think so. I think you fail to appreciate the importance of the discovery, and the impact it will have, if it is real. Cold fusion would be worth trillions of dollars a year. It will be intrinsic to every technology, the way semiconductor computer controls, electricity and plastics are today. Every industrial company would have to master cold fusion technology or go out of business in a decade or two, the way mainframe and minicomputer companies did when PCs took over the market. Imagine a manufacturing company today with no expertise at all in making computer controls. Even bathtubs and kitchen blenders need them, so there has to be someone on your staff who understands them.

Given the immense importance of the technology, it is inconceivable to me that it could be kept as a trade secret. If it took 10 man years to work out the formula, they would put 10 people on the project and work it out in a matter of months. Or 100 people. Or a thousand people. They would use every kind of mass spectrometer and materials analysis instrument that exists, even if it cost billions of dollars. Consider that the R&D to produce the Prius cost about $1 billion. If it took Toyota ten times that to reverse engineer a cold fusion device, they would spend it. The alternative would be bankruptcy in a few years if GM and Ford got it and they did not. In fact, I doubt it would cost $1 billion to reverse engineer a device. A few million would probably be enough.

I am sure Toyota and others will improve the technology as swiftly as AT&T, Texas Instruments and others improved semiconductors in the 1950s. Radical new designs and device types were introduced many times in that era. Transistor types seldom lasted more than a year.

Quote from Alan Smith

Can-sealing compounds of a type I developed 40+ years ago are still being sold, probably modified and upgraded since then but these products enjoy huge global sales and a near monopoly despite being relatively easy to manufacture.

This kind of product has a very limited market. It may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars (I wouldn't know), but not trillions. Most industrial companies have no use for it. Toyota does not seal cans. The number of companies that seal cans is limited, and if they can buy the compounds for a reasonable amount of money there is no benefit for them to re-invent it themselves. They do not have to master it. It is only a small part of their business, whereas cold fusion will be essential to just about every machine that is made, from hearing aids to jet aircraft.

Quote

I wonder what Hagelstein thinks? I noticed he has started doing his own experiments. Maybe he was tired of waiting for Mitchell to come through also

If this is where these folks are with this development, it is ridiculous for them to be teaching it in a class. I wonder if they encounter any critical or skeptical students at all!

Quote

Anyway I understand that proving it works is a dangerous move for an inventor, as it can trigger competitors.

I don't think so. Or please name one instance in which this (effective competition) has happened in LENR. Competitors? What competitors? Anyway, competition promotes the art, if there really is an art. So, in your view, the Wright Brothers (to use a well worn example) should have never shown a working airplane because it might trigger others to make competing designs for airplanes? Write in Tesla Motors for electric cars, name any popular musical artist, the atomic bomb, I don't think I need to continue.

Quote

Some says that best answer is to run faster, collaborate with competitors, exchange IPs fast, promote exploitation of your IPs, and be recognized for your competences, your reactivity, not your IPs...

It works well if you are a dynamic company with great innovations department, not a small inventor with an idea, having worked for years to implement it.

this is a core question for LENR.

The core question for LENR is proving it's real, it works, and it can produce useful, easily measured mounts of energy or isotopes or particles consistently as shown by independent testing and multiple, widely agreed-upon replication. Patenting is important but secondary. Marketing issues and Mr. Goble's fascination with what the technology may do to the society are interesting also but wildly premature.

JedRothwell

Quote

I do not think so. I think you fail to appreciate the importance of the discovery, and the impact it will have, if it is real.

This seems to be a classic problem with believers in unproven but very high potential technologies. It is also what scammers and believers in scammers do-- just an observation, I am not calling anyone a scammer with this remark. Well, except that Steorn with its forum and believer groups (I forget what they were called) was a perfect example of it.

A closely related phenomenon is the premature pursuit of applications, for example, cars, boats and in one case of a whackjob convicted conman (Carl Tilley), a bicycle supposedly powered by his invention! I think I remember someone proposing investment in an LENR car. That is ridiculous until someone makes an LENR proof of concept machine which is widely thought to work, based on high quality testing. Are those folks still around and if so, have they actually accomplished anything?

Quote from seven_of_twenty

So, in your view, the Wright Brothers (to use a well worn example) should have never shown a working airplane because it might trigger others to make competing designs for airplanes?

That was their view. They were certainly well advised by their patent lawyer to keep it under wraps until 1906, when they got the patent. They continued to keep it semi-secret until 1908, which was a mistake, I think. On the other hand, as soon as they revealed it, they were swamped with patent violations and lawsuits. Wilbur Wright's grim pursuit of these lawsuits left him exhausted and probably contributed to his early death in 1912, so things did not work out well. Many well informed people such as their friend Lord Northcliffe thought they might have made a great deal more money with better management of the intellectual property. They did have one of the best venture capital firms on their side, so I wonder if that is true.

See:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJthewrightb.pdf

Without the patent, they would have gotten nothing. An invention as important as this can only be protected by a patent. That's the point I have been trying to make. They had powerful enemies such as the Scientific American, which never learns and never forgets, attacking them most recently in 2003. If cold fusion and Sci. Am. survive, I expect it will attack cold fusion again in 2089.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

I don't think so. Or please name one instance in which this (effective competition) has happened in LENR.

Very few people realize that LENR is real. Of those who know it is real, only three have money and are willing to invest in it. So there is no competition. You have to imagine how things would be if it became generally known that LENR is real, and that it has produced useful levels of heat, temperature and power density for up to 3 months continuously. (That is, ~100 W, boiling at 1 atm, and power density equivalent to a fission reactor core). It has been scaled up already. If the effect could be controlled, it would soon be a practical technology. It is not hard to see that it will soon be about a thousand times cheaper than any other source of energy, and about 10 million times more energy dense per gram of fuel. For things like conventional weapons applications, the advantage of this kind of power supply would be on the same scale as the ironclad Merrimack versus wooden ships in the battle of Hampton Roads (March 1862), or machine guns versus spears in colonial African wars. If decision makers realized this, every industrial corporation and military research laboratory on earth would be frantically trying to replicate, control and master the effect. It should be obvious to anyone who understands technology that this is probably the most important breakthrough since the invention of fire. If it isn't obvious, it soon would be under these circumstances.

I doubt there is any serious opposition by corporations or governments, although a few years ago high officials in the Japanese government declined to support research because, they said, it would "disrupt energy markets." That seems like an odd thing for an official to say in a country that imports nearly all energy resources. But Japan does appear to be OPEC's pocket at times, because it failed to aggressively develop wind and solar resources even after the Fukushima disaster and the demise of fission power in Japan.

The technical facts I describe here have been clear since the 1990s. People do not see them, or they disagree with them, because they are unaware of them, or ignorant, or stupid, or blinded by academic politics. There are no valid technical reasons to disbelieve cold fusion. You can see that by reviewing the only opposition technical papers ever published, by Morrison and Shanahan. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf

You will see that both Morrison and Shanahan are crackpots who cannot tell the difference between power and energy, and who imagine you can heat a 1-liter object on Sunday and it will still be hot on Wednesday. Those are the best, worst and only technical objections ever published to "disprove" cold fusion. Clearly, there are no valid reasons to doubt the claims. If there were, a non-crackpot skeptic would have published them by now.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

If this is where these folks are with this development, it is ridiculous for them to be teaching it in a class. I wonder if they encounter any critical or skeptical students at all!

I suggest you ask them whether they encounter such students.

In 2003 Prof. Melvin Miles offered a course on cold fusion Bates College, Lewiston ME, where he was teaching that year. It happens that I scanned the Syllabus yesterday. I will add it to his letters some weeks from now. He reported that some students were critical and skeptical, which is what I would expect from young people, but overall they were enthusiastic. He wrote to Fleischmann:

"I just finished the first week of my short-term class: 'electrochemistry, Calorimetry and the Cold Fusion Controversy'. The students seem very interested -1 think younger people are more receptive towards cold fusion. I handed out copies of the Newsweek and Time cover stories on cold fusion in the May 8, 1989 issues. The cell displayed is short and fat - nothing like your actual cell. Cal Tech and others tried to copy these dimensions which led to their problems. Some students have asked about your reasons for showing the short and fat cell. . . ."

Here is the syllabus. The course looks worthwhile to me. Do you find it "ridiculous"? If so, why? Perhaps you are not interested in cold fusion. Or, perhaps you are closed-minded and unwilling to do your homework (literally!). Have you read the books in the syllabus, plus some of the major papers at LENR-CANR.org, such as McKubre's? If you have not, you don't know much about cold fusion, and I do not think you have any basis to judge that it is ridiculous.

SYLLABUS: Chemistry S33A Electrochemistry, Calorimetrv. and the Cold Fusion Controversy

Dr. Melvin H. Miles

Office: 26 Coram

Course Objective:

This course will focus on the basic principles of electrochemistry and calorimetry and their application in understanding the cold fusion controversy. Various aspects of cold fusion as well as fusion in general will be discussed.

Textbook and Supplies:

"Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed", 2nd Edition, by Charles G. Beaudette, Oak Grove Press, LLC, South Bristol, Maine (2002).

Library Books (2 hour Reserve):

"Cold Fusion: The Making of a Scientific Controversy" by F. David Peat Peat (QC 791.735 P43), 1989. "Too Hot to Handle: The Race For Cold Fusion", by Frank Close, 1991. "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century" by John R. Huizenga, 1992. "Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion" by Gary Taubes, 1993.

Grading:

Homework 200 pts.

Final 200 pts.

Attendance________________ 20 pts.

TOTAL 220 pts.

Web Resources:

For news and technical papers on cold fusion research go to http://lenr-canr.org/

Quote from JedRothwell

In 2003 Prof. Melvin Miles offered a course on cold fusion

That would be immediately after my first publication questioning cold fusion calorimetry came out and before any objections to it had been published (Szpak, et al, in 2004). Did he cover my points? Of course not, he admitted in 2017 he'd never read my paper(s).

Quote from JedRothwell

Do you find it "ridiculous"?

Yes.

Quote from kirkshanahan

That would be immediately after my first publication questioning cold fusion calorimetry came out and before any objections to it had been published (Szpak, et al, in 2004). Did he cover my points?

On the other hand, he did put the books by Close, Huizenga and Taubes on the reading list, and he made sure they were available in the library. Those three are the best known, most authoritative mainstream opponents of cold fusion. You, on the other hand, are obscure. So I think Miles did a pretty good job presenting both sides of the debate.

If I were teaching a course, I would put Close and Huizenga on the reading list too. Anyone who reads with a critical eye will see that their arguments have no merit. Their books are the best evidence in favor of cold fusion. I would also put Morrison on the list, because anyone with a high-school level grasp of physics can see that he is a crackpot. The students should ask themselves, "if these are the best arguments the opposition can come up with, why does anyone doubt the effect is real?" As I said, the answer is academic politics, ignorance, stupidity so extreme people don't know the difference between power and energy. There are no legitimate reasons to doubt the claims.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

If this is where these folks are with this development, it is ridiculous for them to be teaching it in a class.

An unsurprising comment, coming from someone who refuses to educate himself, or often even read about, the topics at hand.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

I think I remember someone proposing investment in an LENR car. That is ridiculous until someone makes an LENR proof of concept machine which is widely thought to work, based on high quality testing. Are those folks still around and if so, have they actually accomplished anything?

Are you talking about this guy(s):

http://www.lenr-cars.com/index.php

Quote

LENR Cars is a Swiss based company developing mobile electric generators based on LENR technology to power electric vehicles or provide heat and electric power to regular vehicles.

Our LENR generators provides an affordable, safe and clean way for producing and storing energy at high capacity.

Our concept of Condensed Matter Hydrogen Fuel Cells is an advanced version of our LENR generators enabling the electric power generator to become mobile and work as an on-board power generator.

Our technology will allow powering an electric car like the Tesla Model S for over 30'000 km per charge of hydrogen-nickel fuel.

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Quote from AlainCo

put damned theory in their patents.

I know you have good intentions here, Alain. But "damned" v. "good" theory can just be a matter of a few months or years, or a few famous supporters, or a few less moronic reporters or armchair commentators. The reason R. Gordon Gould triumphed in the end was that he had excellently documented notes, a full and timely disclosure to coworker witnesses, and a well-grounded quantum mechanical theory behind his rather speculative 1957 notes on building an optical maser....or "laser", as it became known. Over decades after the expiration of the "original" Bell Labs laser patents... Gould and assigns were granted some 46 retroactive new patents, a largely "one and only" genre of practice from the courts never before impacting the USPTO. After a couple of hundred million in royalties in 1990s dollars US, the Gould family and the assignees were neither damned nor crying. It is a good legacy of "theory". Similar theory, but adding further "reduction to practice" beyond Gould's prescriptive notes, perhaps wrongly gave Shawlow and Townes the Nobel in physics for the same device, under Bell Labs as assignee.

Lipinski's have a patent, Swartz does not. Lipinski's have an enunciated and quite unusual theory, and they deny any LENR attestation. Swartz has theory, but it is, by his word, not novel (should be good!) and perhaps not as well enunciated. Further Swartz' application is unfortunately identified with a SAWS proscription .... which btw also implies possible defense-related applications.... just as Gould's Fabry-Perot coherent laser cavity was and is.

So, I would suggest that generally theory is a strategic tool that can help or harm a patent application. This may be where good counsel is important, but certainly not necessarily vital. A friend of mine had his pro se patent application for a novel product personally shepherded through the patent process by a sympathetic USPTO patent examiner!

[Longview is not a patent attorney nor patent agent, do your own due diligence].

Quote from AlainCo

when I says damned theory, it is not about the theory itself, but that I judge a theory have nothing to do in a patent

David French and other experts in patent law have often told me that you should never include theory in a patent. Theory is a disadvantage with no redeeming benefits. If the theory is wrong, the patent may be invalid. Whereas if there is no theory, the patent will be just as strong as it would be with one. You cannot patent "a force of nature," which I gather means a law of physics or a theory.

So, in a patent, any theory is damned theory. Leave it out!