Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: ...There is precedent for this. In 1917, the United States wanted to begin large-scale mass production of aircraft for World War I. The industry was hamstrung by patent fights especially by the original patent which had been bought by Wright-Martin. There was a confused tangle of conflicting claims and different patents. I do not recall exactly how was worked out, but books about aviation say that Congress cut the Gordian knot and establishing a single source for royalty payments owned by the government. It paid everyone who still had a valid patent in aviation, including Wright-Martin. Something like this a world-wide scale, with many different governments contributing, will probably be needed to work through the cold fusion patent mess. The United States of 1917 is long dead and buried. Sorry if I sound cynical, but the behavior of the establishment and its pet physicists during the cold fusion debacle is really not comparable to the behavior of the early 1900s establishment and its Smithsonian equivalent. Yes, there were establishment denials early on and yes there were some red faces but to compare the lack of flight during that era to the lack of cold fusion as a power source during the late 1900s is to miss orders of magnitude, not to mention a qualitative shift in the kind of corruption in high places that rules today. Seriously, these people would rather fry the biosphere than lose social status.
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
The government in US does not exist. it is a puppet of business, and this is a concept that in Europe we had to learn to fight. But it is hard to import. US Government is a vehicle to make business run nicely. In europe a big change is in process, but not event to the quite coherent system of US. Europe is taking much real power on the local democratic government. these local governement are today soap opera actors, and the real decision are taken elsewhere. European government, is on one site a church of stupid liberal theory drinker, who have transformed EU in the only honest free market zone, this mean the zone to be screwed easily. Beside that theorist, the environmentalist are lobbying very efficiently, and obtain incredible success, without any solid opposition. Behind that, local corp try to protect their interest with some lobbying, but they can only bend the details of directives decided according to liberal and environmentalist dogma. I think that rossi hate so much his administration, that he will work for his adopting-motherland, US. Defkalion, won't, but they will not work for Europe, given what Merkozy have imposed to their people. knowing that you will see that the interest of USGovt, the interest of US Industry, will be to capture the patent, and give US industry a big advantage, with new monopoly (the new 7 sisters). the big companies of today will have to stay the big one of tomorrow. I don't believe they will kill that discovery, just take control of it. Normally Europe will orientate the policy in 2 conflicting axis : - free market for CF device (so we are screwed up standardly)... - forbidding it's use in the name of environment, like done about GMO/Shale gaz/Antennas/nuclear/immunization/chemicals. no effort will me made to keep the patent in europe. big corp will just try to ask for regulation so they are the only allowed users, using the green to fight the liberals. I just hope that Greece, furious about it's treatment by Eurogroup, will fight back. France won't see the revolution came (nothing in the media, like for other scandals- USSR was more open to controversy), then will forbid it, then buy foreign products. Germany will be split between dynamic SMB, and green anti-nuke activists, with the lobby of incumbent renewable energy providers trying to use the green. in china they will try to use it to solve their environmental problems that could lead to nationalist crisis like in USSR, not caring about patents, and exporting devices if possible, maybe event innovation to sell. in Africa the government will not care, or be manipulated/corrupted not to allow it, but population will buy devices despite the government. that is my anticipation... they key points will be the EU homologation... I'm pessimistic. Stupidity is infinite, unlike space. 2011/11/30 James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com The United States of 1917 is long dead and buried. Sorry if I sound cynical, but the behavior of the establishment and its pet physicists during the cold fusion debacle is really not comparable to the behavior of the early 1900s establishment and its Smithsonian equivalent. Yes, there were establishment denials early on and yes there were some red faces but to compare the lack of flight during that era to the lack of cold fusion as a power source during the late 1900s is to miss orders of magnitude, not to mention a qualitative shift in the kind of corruption in high places that rules today. Seriously, these people would rather fry the biosphere than lose social status.
[Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
I think it is likely that the intellectual property rights for cold fusion will soon result in a gigantic legal brawl with countless lawsuits. I suppose that powerful interests may line up behind Piantelli to sue Rossi, and vice versa, with everyone suing Defkalion. A lawsuit frenzy should not hold back the development of the technology. Production and sales usually continue even when intellectual property rights are disputed. Still, it would be regrettable. Someone here suggested that the best solution to this problem would be for governments to throw a large pile of money that everyone involved in the initial development of cold fusion. I think that would probably be a good idea. I hope that Fleischmann and Pons get a large chunk of it. Rossi deserves a lot too. Many people do. There is precedent for this. In 1917, the United States wanted to begin large-scale mass production of aircraft for World War I. The industry was hamstrung by patent fights especially by the original patent which had been bought by Wright-Martin. There was a confused tangle of conflicting claims and different patents. I do not recall exactly how was worked out, but books about aviation say that Congress cut the Gordian knot and establishing a single source for royalty payments owned by the government. It paid everyone who still had a valid patent in aviation, including Wright-Martin. Something like this a world-wide scale, with many different governments contributing, will probably be needed to work through the cold fusion patent mess. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can read the original hearings about this issue. Do a Google search for this document: Hearings ... on estimates submitted by the secretary of the Navy, 1917 By United States Congress House Committee on Naval Affairs When that document appears, look for aviation patent read p. 1177 and 1115. These people were pragmatic. This is a sensible discussion. One of the statements submitted to Congress says that the automobile industry had a similar tangle of patents: I understand that a similar condition arose among automobile manufacturers, and organization was finally formed among them for the purposes of straightening out patent litigation, and I understand that the scheme has worked out most satisfactorily. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
On Tue, 2011-11-29 at 16:01 -0500, Jed Rothwell wrote: Someone here suggested that the best solution to this problem would be for governments to throw a large pile of money that everyone involved in the initial development of cold fusion. I think that would probably be a good idea. I hope that Fleischmann and Pons get a large chunk of it. Rossi deserves a lot too. Many people do. When we start talking about morality, I feel a need to step in... It's not good to take money from people who do not want to give it up, even if someone has a 'noble' way in which to use it. If you are I did this, it would be called theft. And to take money from people to give to those working in one of the largest pent-up markets in history, is just adding insult to injury. Craig
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
Here are some notes on the outcome. I though Uncle Sam purchased the patents, as originally planned. Not so, according to: The American aviation experience: a history By Tim Brady There was a tangle of 130 patents, all essential to aviation. On July 24, 1917 Congress appropriated $640 million for aviation the largest appropriation ever made by Congress for a single purpose The manufacturers agreed to set up a cross patent agreement whereby any manufacturer could use patents by paying a fee to our organization set up by the patent holders. This organization would then apportion the seas to the various patent holders. The Manufacturers' Aircraft Association was thus created to collect and apportion fees and to speak for the industry. . . . - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
Due to the international nature of these patents, what do you predict today? Would LENR be coopted by the IAEA or UN? Would there be a declaration of energy as a human right, and thus richer countries subsidizing the energy needs of poorer nations? Or would $ for new energy sources be pried from developed nations as payback for future adverse effects of previous AGW (climate reparations)? Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Here are some notes on the outcome. I though Uncle Sam purchased the patents, as originally planned. Not so, according to: The American aviation experience: a history By Tim Brady There was a tangle of 130 patents, all essential to aviation. On July 24, 1917 Congress appropriated $640 million for aviation the largest appropriation ever made by Congress for a single purpose The manufacturers agreed to set up a cross patent agreement whereby any manufacturer could use patents by paying a fee to our organization set up by the patent holders. This organization would then apportion the seas to the various patent holders. The Manufacturers' Aircraft Association was thus created to collect and apportion fees and to speak for the industry. . . . - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 2011-11-29 at 16:01 -0500, Jed Rothwell wrote: Someone here suggested that the best solution to this problem would be for governments to throw a large pile of money that everyone involved in the initial development of cold fusion. I think that would probably be a good idea. I hope that Fleischmann and Pons get a large chunk of it. Rossi deserves a lot too. Many people do. When we start talking about morality, I feel a need to step in... It's not good to take money from people who do not want to give it up, even if someone has a 'noble' way in which to use it. If you are I did this, it would be called theft. I do not understand this argument. Fleischmann, Pons, Rossi and many others have intellectual property rights. They invented cold fusion. They deserve a patent just like any other inventors. History and circumstances probably will deny them this patent, so they deserve compensation. This problem was primarily caused by the Patent Office, but many other institutions such as the Department of Energy and the Washington Post contributed to the morass. Blame cannot be assigned to any single person or institution. Rather than argue about this for years and rather than spend hundreds of millions of dollars on legal fees, it would make sense to sweep aside the arguments, give people what they deserve, and proceed with industrial production of cold fusion devices. The total amount of royalties paid will be trivial compared to the benefits to society. Cold fusion is likely save billions of dollars every day worldwide, and 50,000 lives per week. Paying a few billion dollars to Fleischmann, Pons, Rossi and others would be trivial fraction of this. And to take money from people to give to those working in one of the largest pent-up markets in history, is just adding insult to injury. I am not talking about getting anyone to people who be working on cold fusion in the near future. They will learn plenty from the market. I'm talking about diverting a tiny fraction of this to pay the people who invented the technology. Normally they would be granted a patent a paid by that mechanism. Fleischmann is not working on anything. He is old and suffering from a fatal disease. He got nothing for his efforts in cold fusion. Neither did any of the other pioneers. They are mostly old or dead. All they got was 22 years of grief and opprobrium. These people or their survivors deserve something. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
Robert Leguillon robert.leguil...@hotmail.com wrote: Due to the international nature of these patents, what do you predict today? I know little about patents. My only prediction is that the people who deserve a patent for the basic invention of cold fusion will not get one. Cold fusion is essentially in the public domain. That is what intellectual property experts have told me. Would LENR be coopted by the IAEA or UN? Would there be a declaration of energy as a human right, and thus richer countries subsidizing the energy needs of poorer nations? I do not think that will be necessary. Cold fusion devices will be so cheap that even people in the Third World will be able to purchase them, just as they purchase automobiles and bicycles today. They also purchase large amounts of kerosene for illumination. If they stop spending money on kerosene and gasoline for automobiles and motorcycles, there will be plenty of money left over for them to buy cold fusion devices instead. They pay much more for kerosene per liter than we do. They pay thousands of times more per lumen for lighting than we do. I predict this problem will solve itself. However, the tangle of intellectual property and the injustice against people such as Fleischmann will not be solved except with deliberate government action. Governments and big industry caused this problem in the first place by ignoring cold fusion for 22 years despite conclusive evidence that it exists and it is a potential source of energy. They caused the problem; let them fix it. As for how the US citizens might pay our share of this, the amount of money we will save by abolishing the Department of Energy and bankrupting Exxon will easily pay for it. The money we will save in a single day will pay for it. The 20,000 lives we save per year by closing down the coal industry will pay for it hundreds of times over. Add in the benefits from bankrupting Iran and reducing military threats in the Middle East and the cost of compensating Fleischmann et al. becomes a rounding-off error. Bankrupting Saudi Arabia will probably not have any direct benefits for us other than schadenfreude. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
On Tue, 2011-11-29 at 16:34 -0500, Jed Rothwell wrote: Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 2011-11-29 at 16:01 -0500, Jed Rothwell wrote: Someone here suggested that the best solution to this problem would be for governments to throw a large pile of money that everyone involved in the initial development of cold fusion. I think that would probably be a good idea. I hope that Fleischmann and Pons get a large chunk of it. Rossi deserves a lot too. Many people do. When we start talking about morality, I feel a need to step in... It's not good to take money from people who do not want to give it up, even if someone has a 'noble' way in which to use it. If you are I did this, it would be called theft. I do not understand this argument. Fleischmann, Pons, Rossi and many others have intellectual property rights. They invented cold fusion. They deserve a patent just like any other inventors. History and circumstances probably will deny them this patent, so they deserve compensation. But you're not proposing a solution within a moral framework. You're advocating that people take money from those who may not want to give it, and then give it to those to whom you believe deserve it. Taxation is theft because it sits outside of any moral framework and rests on the foundation that 'might makes right'. This is the same principle that legitimized slavery. I fully support their claims to intellectual property, but that's where the battle should be fought. Craig
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Fleischmann is not working on anything. He is old and suffering from a fatal disease. He got nothing for his efforts in cold fusion. Neither did any of the other pioneers. They are mostly old or dead. All they got was 22 years of grief and opprobrium. These people or their survivors deserve something. Where is Stanley Pons? T
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Where is Stanley Pons? He is living quietly in France. I have not heard from him in years. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: But you're not proposing a solution within a moral framework. You're advocating that people take money from those who may not want to give it . . . In that case it should come from a temporary tax on the sale of cold fusion devices. A royalty, in other words. Taxation is theft because it sits outside of any moral framework . . . I do not think so but that is beyond the scope of the discussion. Wrong forum. I fully support their claims to intellectual property, but that's where the battle should be fought. It has been fought and lost there already, thanks to the U.S.P.O., the DoE and others. Experts tell me it is too late for anyone to get a patent for cold fusion, probably including Rossi. Some other equitable and pragmatic solution should be found. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
A tax on cold fusion devices? The last thing we need is another tax! Our government wastes billions of dollars as it is. They could save billions by ending hot fusion research, and bringing our troops home from around the world. The ITER needs to be abolished. From: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 5:10 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917 Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: But you're not proposing a solution within a moral framework. You're advocating that people take money from those who may not want to give it . . . In that case it should come from a temporary tax on the sale of cold fusion devices. A royalty, in other words. Taxation is theft because it sits outside of any moral framework . . . I do not think so but that is beyond the scope of the discussion. Wrong forum. I fully support their claims to intellectual property, but that's where the battle should be fought. It has been fought and lost there already, thanks to the U.S.P.O., the DoE and others. Experts tell me it is too late for anyone to get a patent for cold fusion, probably including Rossi. Some other equitable and pragmatic solution should be found. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
I think what we need to do is convince the world that the E-Cat works, and then promote a peaceful uprising of the people to force the patent office to grand Rossi's patents. From: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 4:50 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917 Robert Leguillon robert.leguil...@hotmail.com wrote: Due to the international nature of these patents, what do you predict today? I know little about patents. My only prediction is that the people who deserve a patent for the basic invention of cold fusion will not get one. Cold fusion is essentially in the public domain. That is what intellectual property experts have told me. Would LENR be coopted by the IAEA or UN? Would there be a declaration of energy as a human right, and thus richer countries subsidizing the energy needs of poorer nations? I do not think that will be necessary. Cold fusion devices will be so cheap that even people in the Third World will be able to purchase them, just as they purchase automobiles and bicycles today. They also purchase large amounts of kerosene for illumination. If they stop spending money on kerosene and gasoline for automobiles and motorcycles, there will be plenty of money left over for them to buy cold fusion devices instead. They pay much more for kerosene per liter than we do. They pay thousands of times more per lumen for lighting than we do. I predict this problem will solve itself. However, the tangle of intellectual property and the injustice against people such as Fleischmann will not be solved except with deliberate government action. Governments and big industry caused this problem in the first place by ignoring cold fusion for 22 years despite conclusive evidence that it exists and it is a potential source of energy. They caused the problem; let them fix it. As for how the US citizens might pay our share of this, the amount of money we will save by abolishing the Department of Energy and bankrupting Exxon will easily pay for it. The money we will save in a single day will pay for it. The 20,000 lives we save per year by closing down the coal industry will pay for it hundreds of times over. Add in the benefits from bankrupting Iran and reducing military threats in the Middle East and the cost of compensating Fleischmann et al. becomes a rounding-off error. Bankrupting Saudi Arabia will probably not have any direct benefits for us other than schadenfreude. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
I don't agree with the government using tax dollars to pay cold fusion inventors. In my opinion, the government needs to be forced (peacefully) to grant Rossi's patent. When the government tries to fix a problem they helped create, 9 out of 10 times they make it worse. From: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 4:34 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917 Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 2011-11-29 at 16:01 -0500, Jed Rothwell wrote: Someone here suggested that the best solution to this problem would be for governments to throw a large pile of money that everyone involved in the initial development of cold fusion. I think that would probably be a good idea. I hope that Fleischmann and Pons get a large chunk of it. Rossi deserves a lot too. Many people do. When we start talking about morality, I feel a need to step in... It's not good to take money from people who do not want to give it up, even if someone has a 'noble' way in which to use it. If you are I did this, it would be called theft. I do not understand this argument. Fleischmann, Pons, Rossi and many others have intellectual property rights. They invented cold fusion. They deserve a patent just like any other inventors. History and circumstances probably will deny them this patent, so they deserve compensation. This problem was primarily caused by the Patent Office, but many other institutions such as the Department of Energy and the Washington Post contributed to the morass. Blame cannot be assigned to any single person or institution. Rather than argue about this for years and rather than spend hundreds of millions of dollars on legal fees, it would make sense to sweep aside the arguments, give people what they deserve, and proceed with industrial production of cold fusion devices. The total amount of royalties paid will be trivial compared to the benefits to society. Cold fusion is likely save billions of dollars every day worldwide, and 50,000 lives per week. Paying a few billion dollars to Fleischmann, Pons, Rossi and others would be trivial fraction of this. And to take money from people to give to those working in one of the largest pent-up markets in history, is just adding insult to injury. I am not talking about getting anyone to people who be working on cold fusion in the near future. They will learn plenty from the market. I'm talking about diverting a tiny fraction of this to pay the people who invented the technology. Normally they would be granted a patent a paid by that mechanism. Fleischmann is not working on anything. He is old and suffering from a fatal disease. He got nothing for his efforts in cold fusion. Neither did any of the other pioneers. They are mostly old or dead. All they got was 22 years of grief and opprobrium. These people or their survivors deserve something. - Jed
[Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
noone noone thesteornpa...@yahoo.com wrote: I don't agree with the government using tax dollars to pay cold fusion inventors. In my opinion, the government needs to be forced (peacefully) to grant Rossi's patent. As I said, having the government grant a patent is functionally equivalent to using a tax surcharge on cold fusion equipment to pay the discoverers. The only difference is that it is too late to grant patents. The discovery is already in the public domain. Patents cannot be granted retroactively. Rather than try to rewrite the patent laws on the fly, or making an exception to them, I think it would be better to address the problem directly. When the government tries to fix a problem they helped create, 9 out of 10 times they make it worse. I do not think there is any evidence for that in technology. As I have pointed out before, the US and British governments together have played an essential role in developing just about every major technology in the last 200 years, from railroads to telegraphs to electricity, aviation, computers, nuclear energy and the Internet. Government researchers themselves invented a large fraction of technology, or the government paid for the research as with the laser and most integrated circuit technology. Nearly all cold fusion breakthroughs were paid for by governments, such as the government of Utah, and various agencies such as MITI, DARPA, DTR, ENEA and BARC. Industry and capitalism have contributed nothing so far. No doubt they will contribute in the future, but without government we would have no cold fusion. Not only did these agencies fund the research, but most researchers spent their entire careers working for national or state universities, national laboratories and other publicly funded institutions. I mean people such as Fleischmann, Pons, Arata, Storms, Miley, Szpak, Boss, Miles, Celani, Focardi, Piantelli, De Ninno. Frattolillo, Violante, Scaramuzzi, Mizuno and Takahashi. A few are with industry, such as McKubre, but most of his funding comes from DARPA. Just about the only major figure I can think of who has not been paid by a government all his life is Rossi. Needless to say, he owes a lot of credit to others I listed above. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Congress cuts the Gordian knot of aviation patents in 1917
the need to merge the patent like it has been for plane seems reasonable. the notion of taxing cold fusion is classic for IP or any business. Windows is a tax on PC... state or private is a polemic detail. the CF inventors could merge their patents to accelerate the developpement of applications before the patents expires. patent is a temporary monopoly granted in exchange of publication, to avoid secret and inventor abuse... one national or international body could help, or even be create to help, that mutualisation. stealing the patent to the ublic will be a solution hard to impose in today's world, but possible sine the real bosses of the worlds are big corp, that don't yet own the patent... so asking the pupet state to steal it is an option. this will be explained in a popular way, but will be done to avoid the incumbent elit to lose their position... so in my opinion the inventors should mutualize quickly before being screwed by big players.
