More disturbing patenting issues...

[preoccupied]

No more patents. If you invent something, you get a trophy.

[Furcurequs]

...but I can already buy all the trophies I want - along with those gold stars like we used to get on our school papers when we were kids.

...lol

Dwayne

[Furcurequs]

I accept what you say, Dwayne, and I know a number of people would patent if they had something to patent, but my own preferred route would be to release the wheel design as widely as possible to prevent any chance of any government clamping a security blanket on it and burying it.

There are a number of ways to profit from the invention without patenting it.

Once the secret is learned it can't be unlearned.

JC

Hey John,

I really don't believe there is government suppression of free energy technologies. I just believe that no one has yet gone public with viable solutions - even assuming that someone (like you or I perhaps) may actually be on to something.

If governments were suppressing such technologies, shouldn't all these folks who publicly claim to have working devices (as can be seen on sites like peswiki.com) be embarrassed that their governments don't seem to be taking interest in them?

Anyway, what others do with their own intellectual property is their choice to make and I respect that, so I can certainly accept that you may have diffent inclinations than I.

I of course can, too, see other ways to profit from such an invention without patenting it, but some of those ways include things I don't really want to do - and with my current health issues I may not even be able to do.

I'd rather, then, just seek compensation for my inventive work itself. It does seem that earning money from one's work is a commonly accepted notion - at least with other sorts of things, you know. (...not to mention that with my current health issues I really can't work a regular job.)

That reminds me. I've actually seen it argued online that musicians should just give their music away for free and then make their money off of concerts and t-shirt sales. ...and that flabbergasts me. Why should someone have to make their living off of some perhaps peripheral business instead of what maybe they do best and others actually want?

Some of my favorite artists were singers, songwriters and studio musicians who for decades didn't even publicly perform their music (at least as a group). Their albums were their art and their product, and so I certainly wanted them rewarded so that I could look forward to even more of their stuff.

(To be honest, I don't much enjoy the equivalent of garage band tapes from wannabe famous musicians with little to no talent - and no matter how much someone in a studio has tried to spruce it up with the latest in technical wizardry.)

As I've stated before, my desire to seek a patent would be not only for trying to secure my legal rights so that I could hopefully more easily obtain adequate compensation for my work (even to include enough of a profit that I could fund further research and development of similar and not so similar things), but so that I could better see to it that the technology gets into the hands of those who may need it the most.

Should I give an African tribesman free plans for a water purifier and for the manufacturing processes of the latest in lifesaving drugs? ...or should I do all that I can to make sure that he also will actually have access to a water purifier and the latest in life saving drugs?

I shouldn't go on to use a sports analogy, I guess, since I don't really watch sports anymore, but I will anyway...

If you were to catch what would be the last minute winning touchdown pass in a game of American football, would you really want to drop the ball before crossing the goal line or worse yet hand the ball to the opposing team? To use those general metaphors, I certainly would want to try to go that extra yard without dropping the ball.

Even if there actually were a risk of some sort of government suppression, going the patent route and going very public so that the "secret" can be widely revealed do not have to be mutually exclusive things - as you can see from jim_mich's plan and that of mine and others. In the U.S. - and even with the new and proposed changes in the patenting laws - it appears one can still go public up to a year before a patent application even needs to be filed - should one feel that is necessary. (Publication might have an adverse affect on patentability in other countries, however.)

The cat can still be let out of the bag before the government even realizes that there actually is a cat.

Once one goes public - and even whether or not he pursues patent protection - there could still be significant patentable improvements made in the future by others. If someone else receiving a patent on such improvements wanted to profit from his idea by being the sole manufacturer rather than licensing his idea to multiple manufacturers, the spread of the technology would probably be much slower than it could be otherwise.

Remember, there would almost certainly be a huge demand for free energy machines worldwide. We aren't exactly talking some novelty device that would only sell in low volumes due to a relatively small number of people having an interest.

Anyway, if I had the patent on the basic technology that the new patent holder wanted to profit from, he would have to work with me and so I could encourage him to license to multiple manufacturers.

Of course, if someone just wanted to sell out and/or suppress any future improvements, they could do that either way, I suppose.

I guess we'll each try to do whatever we feel is right and what we can with what we got, though. Good luck.

Oh, and if for some reason I couldn't publicize my stuff well enough early on and my government actually did impose a secrecy order, the punishments for defying it don't look too severe - apparently only a couple of years in the pokey and/or a five figure fine. ...lol

Of course, with our current government breaking its own rules, I guess I could be added to THE LIST.

Eh, well... ...the way I figure it, if I thought my device were safe and the government wanted to bury it, they'd probably have to bury me along with it.

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose." - Steve Jobs

I believe that quote is from even before he found out he was terminally ill, by the way.

Anyway, talk to you later,

Dwayne

[Furcurequs]

Hello Jim Williams,

Thanks for making it clear that a copyright does not protect the intellectual property rights to the invention itself.

If my own words seemed to imply otherwise, I apologize. I was already aware of the fact, but others might not have been.

I was just trying to point out that if one were to register and/or publish a copyrighted description and/or depiction of his invention, it could be used as evidence of a priority date should he pursue a patent a little later (up to a year in the U.S., I believe) - or, of course, as evidence of prior art if it's published and someone else later tries to patent a similar device.

Since our pursuit may be a bit out of the ordinary, I can see a scenario in which a patent application for a potentially workable device could be denied originally before its operability was truly demonstrated by the inventor himself or others.

I have ideas dating back years. By not filing patent applications on them, I am at greater risk that someone else may have the same or similar ideas and beat me to it - yet if I spend my time and resources filling out paperwork, I won't have the time and resources to build and hopefully even get working my prototypes - which are, of course, needed to obtain such a patent.

I have chosen to hold my ideas "close to the vest," then, so as to not tip off any potential competitors until I myself know if the ideas will work or not.

It would be terribly frustrating for me, though, if I were to eventually get one of my ideas working just so it could validate someone else's patent application - who may have even come up with the idea and applied for a patent after my own invention conception date.

Would the patent protection go to the one who first conceived of the idea and actually got it working or the one who first filed and/or published but had no working model? ...for a supposedly impossible device that apparently requires a working model to get a patent.

We takes our chances with whichever choice we make, I guess.

Thanks,

Dwayne

[preoccupied]

John Collins,
How would you spread the word of a working design?

What if after the working design is widely used, the moon starts to swing in and out of its orbit and occasionally whacks the planet? What if that is why the government wants to shut it up before it is too widely known?

-preoccupied

[Jim Williams]

Furcurequs

If I read the below from a previous post correctly What the Patent Office cannot due is reject an application outright, just because it claims to be perpetual motion, but must wait in due course for the examiner to make that inevitable demand of a working model instead. When it gets to that working model stage, I would guess the patent could be granted to the wrong inventor dependent on the honesty of the one with that working model. I get the feeling the question of where the idea for that model came from would be raised.

..................................................

1. In the past, *>OPAP< (see note 1.) has reviewed the claimed subject matter of newly filed nonprovisional applications to determine whether a filing date should be granted. Such applications included those drawn to perpetual motion devices and methods of doing business and applications for reissue signed by assignees or filed more than 2 years after the grant of the patent which appear to contain broadened reissue claims.

Under the current practice, a filing date is normally granted in such cases if the nonprovisional application filed under 37 CFR 1.53(b) (see note 2.) is otherwise sufficient and then forwarded to the examiner for consideration and decision during the regular course of examination.

(note 1.): All mailed communications are received by the Incoming-Mail Section of the Office of * Patent **>Application Processing (OPAP)<, which opens and distributes all official mail.

(note 2.): 37 CFR 1.53(b) Application filing requirements - Nonprovisional application.
............................................................

I wasn't thinking of your posts, but the posts of Trevor Lyn Whatford and his artistic approach, which is why I posted about copyrights.

It's almost always good to see my name in lights. I hope I answered your question.

Jim W.

[Trevor Lyn Whatford]

Hi Jim W,
I could of got a patent if I described my invention as a Toy, but that was not acceptable to me!

Regards Trevor

[Jim Williams]

Trevor Lyn Whatford

There are 24 American patents that include being classified as perpetual motion, along with a regular classification. None of them work as advertized, but that's exactly related to my point. Some are obvious failed attempts at perpetual motion that were found to have some aspect that made them patentable anyway. I can't figure out why anyone would intentionally patent a perpetual motion machine that didn't work. My point is I admire you for turning that Toy patent down.

Jim W.

[Reticon]

most patents serve 2 main purposes:

1. Feeding the delusion of someone who thinks drawing pictures and describing behaviors will allow them to claim the rights to something before someone else actually makes it work.
2. Allowing big corporations to collect rights to hundreds of little ideas and use them to sue the socks off of their competitors.

More time has been wasted by secrecy than any other factor. Obviously far more than actually building. Talk is cheap.

[Furcurequs]

Hey Reticon,

Some have argued that moving to a first-to-file patenting system would put pressure on inventors to rush to disclose rather than to first do the research and development necessary to actually have the knowledge to file a good (if you will) patent.

If this were the case, then I could see more people in the future fitting into your first category there.

To play devil's advocate with your number 2, corporations do have to try to make money and earn a profit so that they can not only continue to pay their employees but provide dividends to their stockholders/investors.

...which could even indirectly be you if you have money in a bank or in mutual funds or somesuch, I guess.

Obviously, though, not all corporations are known for trying to do what's right and/or even what's within the law.

I also see that many patents these days appear to be for almost trivial things - and seemingly rather obvious and mundane improvements to already existing technology.

Since you mentioned building, out of curiosity I looked around my cabin to see how many prototypes I'm working on. I can see seven partial builds without even moving from where I'm seated.

I tried to remember all the different things I'm working on and it seems I have about nine major ideas I'm hoping to eventually get fully built and tested. Some, of course, are sort of on the back burner at the moment - with less than half of the total being gravity related.

I have parts of builds from former failed ideas scattered about, too, and even previous iterations of current builds. If I were to count my replication of Techstuff's design from years ago, which is about the only idea that's not my own, then I have about 20 builds/partial builds scattered about.

I certainly hope to have more to talk about one day.

Take care.

Dwayne

P.S. Sorry about all the talking. My landlord decided to have some work done on the cabin and so I've had to move lots of stuff around and haven't really been able to work much on my builds in the past week or so.

[Furcurequs]

Hey Jim,

Thanks for your response.

I guess I already understood that a patent application that appeared to be claiming a "perpetual motion device" would not just be automatically rejected right after submission - but would likely be rejected at a later date if the inventor didn't actually present a working model when the patent examiner finally got around to asking for one. ...and if it didn't have other patentable features - as you've pointed out - of course.

Maybe my questions were more rhetorical, actually. I'm just struggling with all the different issues involved - including the upcoming change from first-to-invent to first-to-publish-or-file.

For a typical device that isn't perceived to go against the currently accepted laws of science, simply applying for a patent is considered "reduction to practice," I believe.

We seem, though, to have a greater hurdle in that we must also demonstrate that our inventions actually do work at some point.

With the (soon to be ended) first-to-invent system, my priority dates may already be set for some of my ideas - since I know and documented when I first conceived them.

After the change to first-to-publish-or-file, however, which begins next year, someone else might be able to supersede me just by filling out paperwork - unless I also rush to disclose. I need to read up on how the transition is going to work.

If I had plenty of money, my health and the time to work at all this as if it were a regular job, I would be very inclined to just go ahead and start the patent application process on a few of my more promising ideas and plan on presenting working models when they were later asked for - if later, of course, I could truly confirm that the ideas did work - or simply withdraw my applications if my ideas had proved not to work by then.

Then there is also the possibility that a description of the working principles and the drawings of the devices could be so easily understood that they might receive attention before I was prepared to deal with it.

Though I don't believe there is currently government suppression of free energy devices - I do believe things could possibly change if certain people were to actually see something that really looked like it could work.

...and then there's the publication of patent applications at the 18 month to contend with.

Don't feel you have to respond to this. I'm just sort of TOL (thinking out loud).

I wasn't thinking of your posts, but the posts of Trevor Lyn Whatford and his artistic approach, which is why I posted about copyrights.

I thought that might be the case, but I wanted to make sure.

Thanks again,

Dwayne

[Furcurequs]

John Collins,
How would you spread the word of a working design?

What if after the working design is widely used, the moon starts to swing in and out of its orbit and occasionally whacks the planet? What if that is why the government wants to shut it up before it is too widely known?

-preoccupied

Hey preoccupied,

One of the first things I plan to do should I get one of my prototype devices to actually work is to either mount some wheels to the bottom of its plywood base or more likely suspend the whole contraption from the ceiling with a scale so that I can measure the difference in the forces on the earth due to a working device compared to that of just your ordinary spinning wheel.

I would then try to do the math and try to contact former and/or current NASA astrophysicists and/or others to help decide what potential consequences there could be in the long term if such devices were used worldwide.

Apparently the moon recedes by about 4 centimeters or 1.6 inches a year as it churns our world's ocean's tides and stuff. That amount of energy loss represents about a third or fourth of mankind's current energy consumption (if I remember the info from my previous internet searches and calculations correctly).

At the current rate of recession of the moon, it looks like it will take about 40,000 years for it to be a mile farther away. Of course, our days are also getting slightly longer as this process also slows down the earth's rotation, so (ok, I just looked some things up) in 40,000 years earth's days should be about 0.56 of a second longer. (...at the current rate of change of 1.4 milliseconds per 100 years)

The earth and moon system is very massive, and so if our energy needs were taken from it, that should represent only a very small change in motion in the short term - but could add up in the long term - as in over many thousands of years.

So, if we did (somehow) take our energy needs (at current rates of consumption) from the earth/moon system we could have a moon a mile farther away and days 0.56 of a second longer in only 10,000 years from now instead of 40,000.

The only real doomsday scenario I can think of is a forced precession of the earth that would shift the axis of rotation significantly - a pole shift. With a 90 degree shift , I guess we would be fried with constant sun part of the year, have something like days and nights other parts of the year and be frozen in constant "night" the rest of the year.

We'd probably really have to work together to make that happen, though.

...or work together to avoid it?

Our normally random scurrying around on the earth doesn't seem to affect things much. Maybe random orientations and positions of our working gravity wheels would tend to cancel each other out, too.

At least I would hope so - if there are indeed unwanted resultant forces involved.

Dwayne

[getterdone]

I thought this might be a good place to share this post.

It's an example of how the big corps can abuse the patent system

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Patents_Being ... _In_Danger

[Furcurequs]

I think that may qualify as disturbing.

I took a quick look at a few of the patents and it appears they basically were awarded patents on checklists. How is a checklist non-obvious?

Eh, I don't know. Maybe there was more to it? Sorry I don't feel like investigating any further.

I's got builds to complete. (...hmmm... "I's" passes the spell check.)

Dwayne

[f nepure]

I guess everyone who has ever spent time building wheels with their own funds (and that must be a lot of people on here) would like the compensation that a patent might bring. But ultimately you cannot make money out of free energy.

Our society runs on the principal of paying for consumables like petrol, tyres, lightbulbs, toothbrushes and nappies... if energy can be freely obtained then the device it not marketable in the modern sense like an iPhone or a printer is. No investment company would back a design that has no consumables, add-ons, little need for update and obsoletion replacement, and not many components to wear out, etc...

As JC said - surely the whole idea is to turn that world on it's head & throw the money lenders out of the temple? And the only way to do that is to actively popularize the idea freely, and the rewards would be far greater than any sum of money?