New Electric Car Technology? An end to the internal combustion engine?

this of course, which is surprisingly easy and not even close to as expensive (in financial and life style terms) as most people think. but also the way we generate energy.

 

I am surprised. I was under the impression that patents are granted only after an idea has been reduced to practice. Is there any patent lawyers around here?

 

I'm not a lawyer, but the wikipedia patent article has a section on it.

 

You don't have to make a working model or similar, no. In many instances that might not be practical.

What you DO have to do is explain, in some detail, the aspects of your invention or idea that are new in such a way that someone competent in that field can recreate them. That's why I say this example is, if you'll pardon the pun, hot air because they must have left out the bit that's actually worth anything. What THAT means is that someone can come along and actually patent it, (assuming they can discover the process which, in turn, assumes it actually exists), and there's not a damn thing they can do about it.

My brother and I filed a patent about 20 years ago, (which I think has now lapsed because we didn't take it any further), for a plastic moulding process.

 

Thank you and DoctorD for correcting my misconception, which partly came from my recollection of the discussion/debate about a decade ago regarding the patenting of human genes (as part of the human genome initiative). I recall that the argument was that any patent granted (on the identification of a human gene) would be unenforceable since nothing has been reduced to practice.

 

Actually there is a damn thing they can do. If someone figures out how to make this concept practical, the original start-up company will probably sue for royalties and patent infringement. My understanding is that it's pretty difficult to get a legal opinion that a US patent is invalid because it simply does not work. Then the lawyers for both sides collect a lot of money, the inventors of this crappy patent may get a lot of money for something they don't deserve, and work in this field will cease until all the legal wrangling is settled.

That's why it is disappointing that such a weak patent got allowed. The inventors have not demonstrated they have truly made a useful invention, yet may get a monopoly on the use of the concept for 20 years. Even worse is the American tendency to cheer for the little guy - the start-up company. These inventors may work for a start-up, but are still charlatans.

 

that was going on whilst i was at uni studing a related subject. the only part of it i recall was that the human genome project had decided to just publish everything it sequenced on a daily basis the idea being that once the information was in the public domain craig venter's (?) project couldn't patent it.

 

Check the MPEP.

You don't know what that is?

Losers.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/index.htm

 

I think all that addresses is that patent law, (like much else), is an absolute bloody disaster area, particularly in the US. A patent should only be able to be applied for something you can accurately describe. The use of 'black boxes' is meant to be strictly a no-no.

I agree life doesn't always work out like that but that's what's meant to happen.

 

Just to revisit this topic, I'll probably be buying an electric car next year when the wife's one goes past the point of no return, (we need it to haul too much stuff around at the moment).

Thought long and hard about it, (the electrical generating argument in particular), but with petrol, (gas), costing around $11 a gallon over here and most of our trips being up to a maximum of about 20 miles, (if that!!!), it's a no-brainer.

We have another petrol car which we'll keep for longer trips as well so it's quite practical.

 

Sintered Barium Titanate.

Its not really a secret, just misunderstood by a lot of people. Secret was a poor choice of words from Faux News.

 

Yeah, big surprise, eh?

 

Not really considering the long drawn out process of building a new power plant. If people buy new cars every 5 years or so and an electric car caught on there could be a huge jump in demand over the course of a decade. That wouldn't give suppliers much time to get out there and build new plants.