[Vo]:Patent application shows the flow-around configuration

[Jed Rothwell]

The patent application shows the water flowing around a cell inside a pipe.
Rossi claims this is the present configuration. Storms and others suspect
the water flows through the middle of a torus-shaped cell.

There are three possibilities here: this configuration may be immaterial, or
important, or sub-optimal.

Suppose the configuration makes no difference to performance, and Rossi
settled on this configuration at the time of the patent for no particular
reason. In that case, this detail of the patent is immaterial and it will
have no effect on the validity of the patent. It will be like forward-canard
elevator configuration shown in the Wright brother's patent. Their patent
was still valid when airplanes all had the elevators moved to the rear. That
patent also shows no motors or propellers on the machine, because the
Wrights were only patenting the control system, not those other systems.

This configuration may have some material advantage. I cannot judge what
that might be, but from his comments I have the impression that Rossi thinks
this is important.

It could be that this configuration makes the cells work less well than a
torus design. If it is later shown that when Rossi submitted the patent, he
knew this was a sub-optimal configuration, the patent might be judged
invalid. I am sure his patent lawyer told him that. I do not think he would
run that risk.


Assuming the patent is similar to the application, it seems to cover only
the machine, not the nickel powder. I assume he has another patent
application for the powder. This is somewhat analogous to the fact that
Edison patented the light bulb first, and later a host of peripheral
inventions such as the improved generators and so on. Except that in this
case, it seems to me Rossi has patented the peripheral first, rather than
the central discovery. He can do that if he wants.

Perhaps the final patent covers a broader range than the application.
Perhaps it even shows a configuration other than the flow-around one. I do
not know enough about patents to judge, but I suppose it is similar to the
application, or they would have changed the application text.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Patent application shows the flow-around configuration

[Jed Rothwell]

As pointed out previously, there is excellent short document describing this
issue here:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2165.htm

QUOTE:

The failure to disclose a better method will not invalidate a patent if the
inventor, at the time of filing the application, did not know of the better
method *OR* did not appreciate that it was the best method.

So, if at the time of filing, Rossi sincerely thought the flow-around method
was better, even if it turns out he was wrong he still gets to keep the
patent.

Some people have said the torus is better because it would be easier to
manufacture. That may be true, but I do not think that would impact on the
viability of the patent because it is a side issue. It does not go the heart
of the discovery. The implementation may be awkward to manufacture, but as
long as it functions just as well as another implementation would for the
job it is supposed to do -- generating heat, in this case -- I do not think
it will be ruled invalid.

Getting back to the Wrights, they show the wings being flexed with
wing-warping. That is a technique they developed, that flexes the entire
wing. It was soon supplanted with wing flaps, where only the trailing edge
of the wing is flexed. That was more practical, and more convenient. The
people who invented it said it meant they owed no royalties to the Wrights.
After a long legal battle the courts ruled in favor of the Wrights.

- Jed