> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Lance A. Brown > Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 1:44 PM > To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion > Subject: Re: Scouted: U.S. to collapse in next two years? > > Dan M wrote: > > > > Look at > > > > http://www.allaboutbatteries.com/Battery-Energy.html > > And if you RTFA, you'll see a not implausible argument made by Sherry > Boschertthat Cabasys is squelching the market for large-format NiMH > batteries: >
It seems very implausible to me. And, I think I have some expertise with companies playing hard-ball with intellectual property. You can look at the reference I gave earlier to a recent Boston Globe article that discusses the export of one of my inventions to Iran and see how easy it is for big foreign companies to do workarounds on patents. In particular, what is patented is not NiMH batteries, but one particular technique for using them. Any patent attorney worth his salt can have modest rework written to look like a new variation, not really covered by the original patent...especially if he has good sized companies at his side. If you look at this patent, there is no reason that folks like Sony, Toyota, etc. would not be willing to have their own Japanese patents on similar techniques, and have the case settled in Japanese courts. By the time the case is settled, 2012 would have rolled around. I served on a patent committee for the second largest oilfield service company in the world for 8 years, and am very familiar with how this works. It's not that Chevron wouldn't play hardball, it's that Chevron would play hardball to win money. Sitting on a patent that's about to expire is just stupid, unless you own the lion share of the oil business. There total revenue is about 8% of the crude oil sales from last year....and their last quarterly filing has them buying 49 billion of crude for the quarter vs. 79 billion in revenue. So, they are less than 5% of the crude oil production business. Further, they have licensed their battery technology to big car companies for their production hybrids. That's not sitting on it. You may argue that their strategy is flawed because they don't sell to small startups, but they do sell batteries for large scale automotive use....which is not sitting on the patent. Finally, if this battery were that good, why isn't it dominating the small rechargeable battery market, where it is being sold without restrictions (e.g. you can buy them over the 'net)? Why don't all cell phones use this battery? Might it be the result of the energy density not being all that high? Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
