Cold Fusion ... again?

The only reasons I can come up with for maintaining secrecy on a working device is maintaining patent rights on the invention and perpetrating a fraud. And a patent application filing would result in the details being public within 18 months.Of course I'm a patent attorney and the above is how I think. But I cannot imagine a way to exploit such a device that would not result in every engineer with a wrench and a voltmeter being able to find out any secret required to make the thing work in very short order.

In what way are you suggesting that public announcements are protected? I'm not sure I understand your proposition. I'm guessing you are suggesting that we cannot exploit revealed technology once an application is filed. But that's not correct. The patent won't affect uses that occur before the patent issues (with some exceptions only applicable in the US).It is true that public demonstrations made after the application is filed won't prevent the patent from issuing.As for the risk that the patent won't issue. The alternative is to try and maintain the invention as a trade secret. I don't believe it would be possible to do so. Trade secret law generally does not prevent someone from reverse engineering a product to learn the secret.I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to get a patent for cold fusion through the US patent office because the PTO is predisposed to believe that cold fusion is as bollocks as perpetual motion. The PTO would almost certainly insist on a demonstration evaluated by experts of its selection, which is something that they never require for other inventions.I think we are all in agreement that the circumstances suggest shenanigans rather than an actual breakthrough.

yes.I thought this story sounded familiar. The only thing new about this is the report of independent test results. Here is what that wikipedia article says about the testing of the Energy Catalyzer.Energy Catalyzer - Wikipedia

quote:

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In May 2013 a non-peer-reviewed paper describing "results obtained from evaluations of the operation of the E-Cat HT in two test runs" was submitted to the arxiv digital archive.[61] Although the authors of the paper wrote that they were not in control of all of the aspects of the process, they concluded that, even by the most conservative of measurements, the device produced excess heat with a resulting energy density that was at least one order of magnitudeand possibly severalhigher than any other conventional energy source, including gasoline.[62][63][64]

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Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel commented at scienceblogs saying Rossi did not allow the reactants or products to be measured on this occasion. despite that in the previous tests there was not enough Nickel-62 and Nickel-64 (the only two isotopes which can fuse with hydrogen), at 3.6% and 0.9% respectively, in the reactants to explain the 10% copper output and the 10% copper had the ratio found in nature, not after fusion. According to Siegel, Rossi also refused to unplug the machine while it was operating despite it being an easy way to surreptitiously power the device. He also added that the supposedly independent testers had to rely on data supplied by Rossi.

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Your wording was that the 'announcements are protected' which could mean a few things. What is actually the case is that the invention and the associated patent rights are protected being lost by a public announcement or pubic use. It was likely the international patent rights that your attorneys were worried about being lost. Under US law, there used to be a 1 year grace period protecting against loss of rights by public disclosure. US law on this has changed very recently, but you do need to file before anyone else does.Under US law, once an application is filed, and then publishes 18 months later, there is a limited right to pursue damages arising after the publication date assuming that the patent does issue. But that right has some important restrictions[1], and the recovery is limited to a royalty payment. By contrast, after the patent issues, the patentee can prevent usage of his invention, and can recover much more extensive damage awards. I am not aware of any circumstance where pre-issue damages have been awarded by a US court.Outside of the US, protection is strictly based on activity that occurs after the patent issues.[1] The most important restriction was that you could not modify the patent claims before issue without losing the right to pursue pre-issue damages. But the vast majority of issued patents require modifications to the claims prior to issue.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Rossi already has an Italian patent on his work, and has also filed international applications on the same invention. There should not be anything left to be secretive about.

Uh, heck yeah! Rossi has a complete monopoly on his version of cold fusion everywhere in Italy. And no one but him will ever have similar rights in most countries in the world.He owns 100 percent of what indications point to as being zip diddly jack. Don't get left out.