I've read and re-read the highlighted portion and keep coming up short as to understanding what is being said?justsomeone wrote:Lets say someone has a runner with power. ( I don't )
He knows the principle will work on many different wheels.
He is not an engineer.
He wants to protect his investment.
Now what?
Does he hire an engineering firm to work on all possibilities while his first patent is being processed? Paranoia would set in.
Does he have the engineering firm explore parts for patenting?
If you have a principle that works, then the number of wheels that it works on makes no difference. You patent the principle. Any wheel that uses the principle will be covered by the patent. Then you or who ever does the actual manufacturing and sales of the wheels can design the wheel any way they want using you your patented principle. No one else (in the countries where you have a patent) may use the principle without your consent.
You can patent a perpetual motion machine. Or you can patent the method of producing perpetual motion.
What is the difference?
When you patent a machine you describe the machine. You say it has weights and levers and ropes. But some bright engineer may come along and figure out how to do the same thing using weights and gears and rods. He has designed around your machine. You are screwed!
When you patent a method you figure out how and why your wheel works. You patent the method of using the principle of perpetual motion rather than a patent on a perpetual motion machine. You cannot patent scientific principles but you can patent the method of what is needed to take advantage of the principle so as to make any wheel work. You claim that weights on a rotatable structure or wheel are caused to swing or move along a path describe as blah blah and yada yada. You don't tie anything down to a particular design or shape but you do tie it down to how, why and what circumstances are needed for your wheel to work. You explain in the patent application the method needed to produce the results of perpetual motion.
Of course you need to tell why your wheel works as it does. This means you need to know where it gets its extra energy. To use Bills words, you need to know what is its legitimate energy source. In the description part of the patent you show one or more designs that implement the method.
Then if anyone makes a wheel of any design that uses the method that you described in your patent you can force them to stop or to pay you for their use.
I'm quite sure that there will be only one basic method of perpetual motion. If there were many methods then we most like would have found at least one by now.
If you discover the method then you can hire one or more good mechanical engineers to design wheels for you. You might go on to patent design improvements so that when your 20 year patent life expires you still have certain design improvements that are covered. If someone else patents a design improvement then they cannot use it because their improved wheel would still contain your method of PM. In turn you could not use their improvement unless they let you.
Or maybe by that time your PM wheel company is so big that you just ignore them and use their improvement anyway knowing that they don't have the money to fight you. But then they hire a lawyer on contingency and he sues your ass and wins and you loose your company. Ah, the peril of doing business. If you're always honest and truthful you will win in the long run.
I rambled on and on much too long… It about 12:30 in the morning. Time to crawl into bed.