Jed might confirm this... someday.
Rossi and the Navy have been swapping notes and friendly assistance since the first demo.
The U.S. has had a multi pronged LENR Manhattan Project since '89. This is not a 'conspiracy theory', nor was the 'Manhattan Project ' considered such. The strategic importance of having a non-radioactive nuclear dense energy source was understood by the military immediately. They have cracked the cold fusion puzzle at least a decade ago (see Guam). Improvements are still being made. The most advanced CMNS LENR energy tech and applied engineering entering the market is from these efforts.
We will see more research disclosure and a slew of more advanced patents published over the next year. This recent patent is just an introductory/disclosure and will be replaced with a much better iteration.
Louis DeChiaro has been helping coordinate the U.S. DoD multi laboratory LENR efforts in Washington DC Branch Q as stated in his IEEE bio from the Hagelstein/DeChiaro IEEE CMNS workshop a few years back.
Anyways, what we are seeing now is the release of works held back for security/strategic concerns. The multi lab effort/research, at Indian Head, being announced/planned now is nothing new. Here is evidence.
This paper has not been published/released yet (perhaps one of you can find it) but the works within it are beginning to be cleared for public consumption. The paper is referenced (ref #12) in a paper presented by Pam (SPAWAR/GEC) at ICCF21 titled, "Overview of Pd/D Co-Deposition" P. Boss, L. Forsley, F. Gordon
The referenced paper's title is, "A Multi-Laboratory Study of Anomalous Elements and Magnetic Orientation Effects in LENR Co-Deposition Experiments, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren (Indian Head Division) 2018" The lead author is Louis DeChiaro. Note that some of the other authors are found in the NASA AEC and Lattice Confinement Fusion patents and research papers as well as the inventor(s ) of the patent discussed on this thread. The important and essential PineScie working theory and computer modeling of the LENR reactive environment has yet to be released.
These other authors are...
L.P.G. Forsley
P.A. Mosier-Boss
B.M. Steinetz
R.C. Hendricks
K.J. Long
P. Rayms-Keller
M.J. Shea
S. Barker
T.L. Benyo
D.L. Ellis
I. Locci
D. Johnson
W.D. Jennings
It's heartening to see these folks publicly working together...