My understanding is that a patent is only valuable if it actually
follows the rules. If the patent can be shown to have been granted
based on false claims, it can be ruled to be unenforceable by the
courts. In which case the inventor gets nothing. Meanwhile the
inventor has spent a lot of money trying to defend the patent and any
application of the idea has been slowed or stopped.
One of the rules imposed by the USPO is that the patent must show how
the claim can be replicated by a person skilled in the art. I know of
no granted patent in the CF field that gives enough information for
this requirement to be satisfied. In addition, the described
demonstrations of heat production and the explanations can be argued
were based on imagination alone rather than facts. This being the
case, I would expect a series of lawsuits between patent holders in
the future as they fight over which patent is valid.
So, I ask, what is the purpose of trying to get a patent when the
understanding is so primitive? In the past, patents were generally
obtained after the basic process was understood, with the patent being
used to describe a novel APPLICATION of a known phenomenon. This is
not the situation with CF. The basic mechanism is not known and the
location in the material that is active has not been identified. The
patents are essentially describing magic without showing how the magic
was done.
I would like to hear from some patent holders about how they view this
situation.
Ed Storms
On Jan 22, 2013, at 1:58 PM, a.ashfield wrote:
Rob Dingemans
"Of course an inventor is to be linked to the patent(s), so this
person can be seen as someone that has brought a (great)
contribution for the field.'
Hard to live on your great contribution, particularly if you have
spent all your money and hocked your house to develop it.
