Gnorts!
One of the misconceptions regarding the research done by private industry is that private industry would publish their work, or even let it be known that work was being done in a particular field by that industry in the first place.
At this stage we know so little about the cold fusion effect that all research is still at the fundamental physics level, which seems unlikely to result in a patent, useful intellectual property, or a practical device. You cannot patent a force of nature, only a specific method of harnessing that force, and all of the methods of harnessing cold fusion that I have seen so far seem unpromising from a practical point of view. I assume the only reason for doing these experiments is to discover the nature of the reaction. In other words, to develop a theory, or at least a working model. Later, based on this theory we hope someone will develop an effective way to tap the energy. It seems to me this ultimate method is likely to be very different from everything we have done so far. Before cold fusion achieves a practical form, my guess is that it will go through phases as varied as steam engines did in four of their early major configurations:
Ancient steam driven whirligig toys
Savery engine (actually driven by a vacuum, not steam pressure)
Newcomen engine (also a vacuum)
Watt engine (positive steam pressure)
These machines were so different from one another, I doubt that any intellectual property would have carried from one to the other. (Actually, modern intellectual property did not exist back then.) Useful knowledge was carried from one design to the next, but it was of a practical, hands-on nature. The people building and operating Savery engines were not much better prepared to make the first Newcomen engines, because they understood how to deal with boilers, seals, coal fires and so on.
There are other technologies in which the basic form has carried over from one generation to another. However, these are mainly engineering breakthroughs, rather than breakthroughs in physics or chemistry. Two well-known examples are the airplane and the computer processor. If patents lasted 100 years (and I hope they never do!), the 1906 Wright patent would probably still be 100% applicable to all airplanes; and I think von Neumann would have no difficulty recognizing his architecture in today's microprocessors.
Because CF research is still at such a primitive level, I do not think it is possible to do effective research without first consulting with experts in the field, and without revealing what you are doing. I am aware that various corporations have quietly conducted cold fusion experiments from time to time, but as far as I know, their results have not been any better than published results from universities, national laboratories, SRI and elsewhere. The results at SRI, for example, are very impressive from a scientific point of view, but they have no commercial value and no significant patentable intellectual property as far as I can judge. Mike McKubre may well disagree with me!
- Jed
