I'm not sure anyone has pointed out the IP advantages to Rossi of selling his initial plants to the US military.
Unlike the Chinese army or the Iranian republican guard, the US military is not in the business of reverse engineering, or of lowest cost procurement. For mission critical components, they can pretty much purchase what they need, subject to it fitting into the "petty cash" requirement. When your HVAC cost in two theaters of water is 20 billion plus (http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning), a few millions for Rossi devices is modest. Petty, even. This gets Rossi devices into the field for testing and use by a willing customer. This moves him _far_ down the curve towards broad utility. Engineering is always best tested in the field, the muddier the field -- the better. And once tested -- and eventually acknowledged -- by such a customer, his IP prospects improve dramatically. From both an intellectual and a political point of view. I am not going to speculate which is most important. As for Rossi's declarations of not having the military for a customer, if you are in high technology they _will_ be a customer if you have a competitive product. Filtering through Rossi's declarations about this, and imagining what he was thinking (as opposed to what he translated into English), one could read "I won't sell this as weapons technology, but if it keeps soldiers warm or cold or more effective, that's OK with me". If that sounds like rationalization, welcome to the world of getting things done on a shoe string as an entrepreneur. “He must needs go that the Devil drives.” Shakespeare: All’s Well That-Ends Well, i. 3. Let's hope that his bargain is not Faustian. -- Sean
