It's my understanding that every patent application is examined by a patent examiner. The examiner makes the determination whether the patent will be granted or not, and uses the criteria established in Federal statutes and case law to determine whether the invention is patentable or not. The influence of the opinions of DOE-funded scientists on the decisions of patent examiners with regard to CF-related patent applications may be profound, but as far as I am aware it is indirect (e.g. contributions to "common knowledge" regarding cold fusion).parallel wrote:My understanding of the situation is that the US patent office will not consider a patent having to do with CF. Various scientists, notably from DOE, have arranged it that CF is treated like perpetual motion.
18 months.parallel wrote:If he did disclose everything in a patent application, how long do you suppose it would be before the information leaked?
Yes, that's a risk. The best way to mitigate that risk is to ensure that the invention is new, non-obvious, and useful (including functional).parallel wrote:Then, suppose the patent was not granted for any reason, the information would be free for others to use.
Sometimes trade secret protection is the better choice, but that also carries with it its own risks. If your trade secrets are breached, congratulations! You get to sue the one person or handful of people who breached your confidentiality agreement, and nobody else. Everybody else who makes use of your trade secret, including commercially, is beyond your reach, because they never signed a confidentiality agreement with you. Pick your poison.parallel wrote:He has a patent attorney working on the problem, whom one supposes knows more about it than us. If there is a way around the problem presumably he will take it. The bottom line is that it is not as simple as you suggest to get foolproof coverage. Without it, Rossi would be foolish to disclose more than he has to for commercial reasons.
Well, you certainly don't get patent enforcement until after your patent is granted, but assuming your patent is finally granted, you get to go after everyone who infringed your patent before it was granted. They can't just stop infringing your patent after it is granted and pretend like nothing happened. One purpose of filing for a patent is to obtain a temporary (beginning from the filing date) monopoly on the commercial use of an invention, but another purpose is to prevent a competitor from obtaining a monopoly on the same invention. If you file a patent on your invention, there's evidence indicating that the idea belongs to you, whether it is ultimately determined to be patentable or not. If you protect your invention as a trade secret and someone else manages to stumble across the same idea, file a patent on it, and the patent is granted, congratulations! You are now in violation of their patent. You can't even invalidate their patent, using your trade secret as evidence of prior art, because prior art has to have been made public before the patent was filed. Like I said above, pick your poison.parallel wrote:Edit added. You are wrong to suppose he gets protection from the day of the application. You only get protection from that date AFTER the patent is granted. Lawyers can make sure that doesn't occur in your lifetime. For example, ultimately Tesla (not Marconi) was given priority for wireless communication - after he died.
My overall point is, if you've got something that works, and that can be shown to work (and is new, non-obvious...), you would be silly not to file a patent on it. If you haven't got something that works, and that can be shown to work, well then, maybe I can understand not filing a patent on it.