Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote:
> Constant heat input offers too little control. The reason for this is not > known but many experimenters have seen it. Yup. > A skeptic might complain that this kind of thermal ratcheting is such a > simple factor that it is not worth protecting as either, but then again, > they and several other smart commentators have missed it here already. It does not matter how simple it is! If it is novel and it makes the gadget work, Rossi can get a patent for it, and that patent is potentially worth a trillion dollars. Simplicity or complexity has no bearing on the validity of intellectual property. Most patents describe complicated devices because the simple devices have already been discovered. Some of the most famous patents, such as the airplane and the transistor, are rather simple in retrospect. Discovering them was difficult, but once you discover them, you can describe them in a few pages. Some patents for cold fusion include a great deal of speculative material regarding theory. David French says it is a big mistake to include this. I gather that if the theory is proved wrong, the whole patent may be thrown out. It is better to keep the patent simple. You do not need to know how something works to get a patent. If you can make it work, and show others who skilled in the art how to make it work, you get the patent. - Jed
