-----Original Message----- From: Mark Goldes Joseph Yater did substantial work in the diode conversion arena.
See: http://www.rexresearch.com/yater/yater.htm See also what I believe was his last Patent: US 5,889,287 Unfortunately, he was unable to raise sufficient funds to commercialize his work and has passed on. I believe his daughters tried to continue the effort but it seems to have been to no avail. Mark, Interesting in several ways. The contrast between Yater and Brown would make a good case study for a patent lawyer. Brown had the earliest filing date of the two, but he bases the active elements in his array on "diodes" while Yater carefully avoids that designation. Yater in his recent work is labeling this active element as a "quantum well" - but it is a functional diode. In both cases the concept is to find a small effect and then to etch billions (later over a trillion) of identical devices onto a chip. Yates is also successful at getting a brand new patent in 1999 which is almost identical to the old patent in 1965, except for the addition of then QM lingo and particularly the so-called "quantum well". It is no wonder that a deep pockets company, which performed thorough due diligence on this string of patents would reject Yater's IP coverage as inadequate. If the concept worked at all, then there is probably little protection to be had, given the long string of prior art. More likely is that Yater's device may not have worked as planned for the same reason that Brown's (apparently) did not work - which gets us back to the issue of "disturbance". I find it very troubling from a theoretical perspective that a device can be robust when completely isolated, but almost dead when "disturbed". Anyway, both of these devices seem to be so brilliant on first viewing, and given that we know that samples were made - and yet a PoC was never proved, we are left with the worry: does conservation of energy always win out in the end in thermoelectric devices, and for such an unsatisfying rationale? Jones
