Hey Art,
According to the following article, they have supposedly already applied for a patent.
Emailing from Brazil, company president Renato Ribeiro gives few details, but says this sort of energy technology has been sought for centuries, so it's natural that people are skeptical. He promises that the technology will surprise a lot of people, and that they've already applied for a patent.
http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2013/02/ ... 5637.shtml
I don't believe I've seen a patent or patent application that would seemingly apply to this thing, though. Here is a list of those naming Renato Ribeiro as inventor.
http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/Renato ... iro_1.html
It would seem, then, that a patent on this has not (yet) been granted nor has the patent application been published. I believe in the U.S. they now publish the applications a year and half after filing if the patent hasn't yet been granted, btw.
If the Ribeiros have actually filed a patent application for a workable device, though, they can go public while claiming "patent pending" and still be protected. ...as long as all of the important details were already covered, of course.
If I had what they claim to have, though, I certainly wouldn't be doing what they are doing. I would have already gone public with my smaller working models.
Dwayne