LENR Patents, Dr. Schwarz and the USPTO.

    Quote from Simon Brink

    Best of luck Mitchell. Until the patent office recognises LENR, it appears that only other forms of IP protection are realistic... (like not telling anyone..)

    I do not think you can protect cold fusion IP by not telling anyone, unless your only goal is to take the secret to the grave. Which many people have done. The moment you do anything useful with cold fusion, everyone will find out. If you have no patent they will reverse engineer your device and take your IP without paying. Without a patent, there is no way to protect cold fusion IP. You can protect less important discoveries with trade secrets, but not cold fusion.


    I do not agree that the problem is the Patent Office does not "recognize" cold fusion. If I understand the Patent Office judgement, the Patent Office stands ready to recognize cold fusion and grant a patent to Swartz. The judgement says he must prove the reaction is real and that it can be replicated from the patent. That seems reasonable to me. If I were the judge, I would make the same demands. With most patent applications, the Patent Office examiner assumes that the device works as claimed, and that it can be replicated. However, the Patent Office reserves the right to demand proof. In the case of cold fusion I agree it is necessary to prove your claim, because many mistaken claims have been made.


    If the device does work, it would be easy to arrange high-quality, convincing verification tests. It would harder to show that it can be replicated from the patent, but I think that could also be done. I assume Swartz has not done either of these things, because he did not respond to the court.

    • Official Post

    After discussing with people from innovation domain, I'm convinced :

    • there will be no way to lock LENR with a patent, as there is no way to block a tsunami.
      • like with a tsunami best would be not to put wall, but to free the way, and just take a fee along the long way.
    • when LENR is recognized, the wave will be so powerful that
      • any patent of interest to give tiny advantage will be valuable as a tiny part of a mega huge value
        • if you ask tiny fees, it will be worthless to argue with you, and you will be paid
        • if you ask big fees, it will be so valuable to circumvent your patent that you will be circumvented
      • any expert, assumed expert, possible expert, will be valued as long as he may help, even maybe, and maybe maybe.
        • even if everybody stole your ideas, you will be valued as someone who can have new ideas, which is invaluable
      • the wind of innovation will be so fast that even pig will fly.
        • fight to create the wave, and don't care of the way to surf, A Stonehenge pillars would float over that wave.

    Problem is to start the wave, and the method is a big question.

    Quote from AlainCo

    After discussing with people from innovation domain, I'm convinced :

    there will be no way to lock LENR with a patent, as there is no way to block a tsunami.

    I am not sure what you mean by "block".


    Perhaps you mean "prevent, stall or slow down" the development of the technology. Patents are not intended for that purpose. If you get a patent for an important technology, and the U.S. Government thinks you are using it to prevent development by sitting on it, and by not licensing it, the government can revoke the patent. On rare occasions they have done this. So, the idea that a large energy corporation might invent something crucial to cold fusion, or "buy up patents," and thereby prevent the development of cold fusion is mistaken. The government will not allow that. A corporation might prevent the development of a minor technology with that method, if Uncle Sam did not notice, and the inventor agreed to it.


    Perhaps you mean that an inventor or a company can lock in large amounts of money with a patent. Yes, that can be done. A patent can be worth billions of dollars.


    Nothing can lock in a large market share because, as I said, for a technology as crucial as this, the government will insist the patent be licensed to major industrial corporations. It will not allow a monopoly. Minor patents and patents for things like new drugs can be used to establish a temporary monopoly, until the patent expires. That is why the patent for popular drugs such as Viagra are worth a fortune. Viagra earned $1.93 billion in the U.S. market alone from 2003 - 2013. A generic version was licensed in 2017. The patent will expire in 2020.


    There is a conflict between patent law and antitrust law.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Nothing can lock in a large market share because, as I said, for a technology as crucial as this, the government will insist the patent be licensed to major industrial corporations. It will not allow a monopoly.

    In other words, if you have an essential patent, you might get royalties from every company that makes cold fusion devices, and you might make boatloads of money, but you cannot "corner the market" or reserve a large market share for yourself or for a few of your licensees. The government will not allow you to restrict licensing to only a few companies. Or only to yourself in your own company. You will have to license many different companies. You will not be allowed to keep it yourself and be the only cold fusion reactor manufacturer in the U.S. (This is yet another reason Rossi's scheme of selling power with remote control is preposterous, besides the fact that it would be dangerous and it would violate a long list of safety regulations.)


    I do not know about other countries.


    This is what experts in patents told me. This is especially the way things work in the U.S. when the technology has important military applications. Cold fusion has many of these. It will revolutionize many different military technologies, both directly in weapons, and in non-weapon applications such as vehicles.


    If you get a patent for a minor invention that will have no impact on the economy, and has no military applications, then I believe you are allowed to manufacture it yourself without licensing any other manufacturer, or to license it to only one manufacturer. However, if the government judges that the invention is important, or somewhat important anyway, that manufacturer cannot sit on it, without making it. It has to make and sell the devices, or the government will intervene. You cannot use the patent system to suppress a technology. The purpose of the patent system is to benefit society while rewarding the inventor. If you deliberately withhold benefits from society, and Uncle Sam notices that's what you are doing, the patent may be revoked.

    • Official Post

    JedRothwell My meaning was to lock a market for your interest, reserve yourself most of the added value (not stall the development straight).

    As You say, it is impossible to lock up LENR to make the most of money only for you.

    It is not only a legal question as you explain, but simply impossible because of market and people forces.


    You have to share.


    Someone told me that the rules of business is that more or less you make money proportionally to what you put on the table. Usually if you put a billion on the table you get half as benefit... if you are really on a locked market with great advantage (think of Microsoft Windows), you can expect to double.

    That money is usually there to build the manufacturing infrastructure, the marketing, the market structuration... and technology is a tiny point in that.


    An inventor don't put much money, so cannot expect billions back. There is apparently an exception to the above rule that makes the inventor be paid few millions, like a tip to the guy who make it possible, but most money is for the guys who put the billions on the table to make it real.


    I forgot to say that most money is not even for the investors, but for... the clients... with cost saving and service.


    Never forget that the always winning is the client.

    Only the king could afford an ice cream... and I have few pots in my surgelator today. I'm the king.

    • Official Post

    LOLs. I think Swartz is going to war with the USPTO over on Cold Fusion Times:


    INQUIRING MINDS NEED/WANT TO KNOW:

    siren.gifWho signed the Original "SAW MEMORANDUM"  that began/initiated/broadcast the systematic suppression/obstruction/cover_up of cold fusion/LANR Patent Applications at the USPTO? Why?

    siren.gifWhat was the purpose of the obstruction/suppression/stopping of US Patent Applications on cold fusion? If it did "not exist", then why did it take scores of lawyers and agents working for thirty years to [try to] cover it up?

    siren.gifWhat Document(s) and Authority(ies) have been systematically subverted by the continued use of the factually false statements and unsupported Dogma by the USPTO? Why would they dare to do this? What Oath(s) have been broken?

    siren.gifWho did benefit? Who paid those who did profit? What contracts continued? Who has been hurt? What has been the impact of unclean energy on health? on infectious disease? on clean air? on clean water? on US and world security?

    siren.gifWhat is the name for the suppression of opposition (hint: begins with "F") such as the recent Federal Appellate Court Panel's "rubberstamping" of many factually false statements made only to continue unsupported, undeserved, malicious Censorship/Suppression of CF/LANR? Why would the Panel not care about Trust, US security or the Constitution?

    siren.gifWhat has been the continued fake narrative which the schemers at the USPTO have used to systematically usurp Human Rights and Constitutional Rights, and to steal and transfer IP, and to continue their conspiratorial 30-year abuse/corruption; which is now characterized by their "boiler plate" response, their copious dirty tricks, and their now exposed failure to Docket/Respond to timely-submitted Evidence?

    siren.gifHow much Taxpayer money has been diverted_to/stolen_by those who have altered data, sequestered Evidence, and have sociopathically lied on federal documents and then paid others to use barratry to cover that up?

    • Official Post

    Yes.

    Bicycle is a good example. for some time Bicycle was one of the main subject of patents.

    Bicycling was unpatented, but many details, from chains, gears, tires, tiny details, shapes, gave tons of opportunity to sell IP.

    Recent IH/Letts patents are such good example...

    Swartz would serve the cause of LENR better by eschewing the and by giving his LENR students kits or the method for making kits to demonstrate LENR beyond doubt. He says he can. Wish he'd and do it.


    Quote

    That is why I don't link to his site.

    You think it's hard to find?

    Quote from Alan Smith

    A bit like trying to patent steam but not the steam engine. I suspect that applications patents (like those for steam engines) might be a better way to go.

    Here is a steam turbine componetnt patent from 1988 awarded to Westinghouse Electric Corp.:


    https://patents.google.com/patent/US4811565


    That's a steam engine. Not an application; it is an integral part of the turbine itself. I expect there are more recent steam engine patents. There are hundreds of patents relating to combustion technology, even though fire was discovered 600,000 years ago. The number of semiconductor patents, and the royalties from these patents, has increased dramatically in recent years, even though the first semiconductor patent expired long ago:


    https://www.jonesday.com/files…uctor%20Industry%20WP.pdf


    If cold fusion is made into practical technology, and if is still in use 600,000 years from now, I predict that people will still be improving it. They will still be finding new and better ways to use it. I cannot predict whether capitalism and money will still be around in 600,000 years, but if they are, people will still be filing new patents for cold fusion technology. Not just cold fusion; they will be still be improving combustion, aerospace, medical technology, and bicycles. For as long as people use a machine, they keep tinkering with it, improving it, and changing it.


    (One could argue that we might keep using every technology, even benighted ones such as gasoline internal combustion engines. Arthur Clarke said mankind never completely stops using a technology. We still build things out of stone, and we still ride on horses and elephants.)


    You might think that devices such as spoons and sewing needles have not changed much in the last 200 years. You would be wrong. The machines used to fabricate them have changed beyond recognition. I recently saw shiny fake silver spoons at party made of plastic that were unlike anything I have seen before.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    You definitely need to get out more.

    As they say in Washington DC, "you know that's right!" And this was the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, not exactly the trendiest hot spot in Atlanta. I expect they had silvery plastic forks in Buckhead ages ago. It was a gallery anniversary event featuring silvery forks and TWO cakes from the grocery store, because the store got the order mixed up. The store bakery let the curator have the second one free. THAT'S how trendy it is. TWO CAKES.

    This is an interesting description of NANOR events as of 5 yrs ago - maybe we can update this with newer theory? All been nicely replicated by the Japanese groups recently although they didn't observe such high COP's (maybe this is irrelevant / the absolute levels of excess energy measured are probably more important)




    Close up, in ZrO2–PdD LANR/CF nanostructured materials, the lattice of Pd is expanded by Zr, and less so, by the
    H and D. In addition, there are other major changes secondary to the oxidation of the Zr. Some are electrical and
    very important. The nanostructured material is a composite distribution of nanostructured ferromagnetic “islands”
    separated among a vast dielectric zirconia “ocean”. The dielectric zirconia embeds uncountable numbers of nanostructured metal ternary alloy islands of the material containing now PdD. Electrically, the response of the CF/LANR
    nanostructured material is complex and characterized by complicated polarization/transconduction phenomena including an “avalanche effect” (transconduction electrical breakdown) which has a critical role in excess heat generation
    [9,12]. This occurs because the zirconia dielectric matrix is insulating at low voltage and it keeps the nanoscale metal
    islands electrically separated

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