I think I will send without an attachment
Found this recent 2011 patent application for an inertial drive similar to
the TerraWatt drive and attached the google patent version and another link
http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/WO2011044588
Filed by this guy:
Joseph P. Firmage, 28, founded USWeb, a leading Internet consulting firm,
in 1995. Like his previous ventures, the company prospered wildly. For
fiscal 1998, USWeb posted revenue of $228 million - a 100% increase over
the previous year.
He referenced one of the early magnetic motor developers, Bruce De Palma
MIT/Harvard grad (Brian's brother - Scarface Director). Bruce evidently
had a working demo unit filed a patent application back in the 1990's
before succumbing to stomach cancer and/or internal bleeding at age 52.
The motor was never brought to market.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/86710207/Bruce-Depalma-History
http://www.brucedepalma.com/
Just food for thought.
I wish some of these guys stayed healthier.
Stewart
On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 7:44 PM, Jeff Berkowitz pdx...@gmail.com wrote:
A patent is not the only way to protect an idea. In practice, trade
secret law may be more important. This is particularly true when the idea
to be protected is not the product itself, but the process used to produce
it.
Consider the high-K metal gate process used by Intel at the 45nm and 32nm
nodes. Intel published a small amount of information about the process when
they introduced it. And competitors have undoubtedly reverse engineered the
results, determining the precise geometries and elemental makeup of the
devices.
But they do not know the process used to produce them. They are forced to
hypothesize about the process technology and then test each hypothesis.
Certainly, knowing the final result is a huge advantage over having to
dream it up in the first place. But reverse engineering the manufacturing
process is still daunting, even for engineers already skilled in the art.
I think there may be analogies in LENR. Now frankly in the long run, I
don't expect this fact to be especially significant. If this stuff plays
out as some of us hope, the economic incentive will ensure that what can be
done, will be done, and quickly. If it doesn't play out, there are no
useful secrets to protect.
But trade secrecy may have a large effect on the likelihood of people
like me, a curious non-specialist, ever being able to satisfy my curiosity
about what the heck is going on. Bummer. ;-)
Jeff, speaking for myself.
I have never been employed by Intel or had access to any Intel
trade-secret information through NDA or anything like that.
On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 12:23 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote:
I wrote:
Generally speaking, in my experience, the value of a technical claim is
inversely proportional to the level of secrecy applied to it.
I am not being cynical. Well, not completely cynical. In technology,
when you make an important claim you file a patent. A patent must reveal
everything or it is invalid. In pure science, when you make an important
breakthrough you rush to publish it as soon as possible to establish
priority.
Sometimes, foolish people make what they think is an important
breakthrough and they try to keep it secret. These breakthroughs are
usually mistakes or stuff that everyone knows already.
Howard Aiken's dictum applies: Don't worry about people stealing your
ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's
throats.
- Jed
