Steorn's actions make business sense

Mudd said:
One can patent technology, but not the scientific principles underlying it.

If you patent your start-stop device and start selling it, you'll make money until someone develops a continuous-motion device based on the aforementioned scientific principles.

At that point, you'll make no money at all, because the continuous-motion version is more desirable and marketable.

The developer of the continuous-motion device will make money until someone develops a solid-state device, at which point the continuous-motion device will be as worthless as the start-stop one.
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The problem is, your ideas about who would make money are based on a lack of understanding how patents actually work.

"Interesting fact" time. Well, it's interesting if you're interested in patents. :) You can have a patent to technology B that depends on earlier technology A that was patented by someone else. In that case, the owner of patent B cannot use his technology unless he gets a license from the owner of patent A, otherwise he would be infringing patent A.

If the continuous version inventor used any of the technology used in the start-stop version, he would be in just such a position. Then, the start-stop guys could either deny him a license, and keep selling their own product, or make some sort of deal, to cross-license the two patents, so everyone could produce both devices, or some intermediate arrangement. Then, the start-stop guys are making money off everyone else who patents later versions, in so far as the later versions are based on their earlier work.

So it still doesn't make any business sense. Assuming your patents are well-written, of course.
 
Stellafane said:
Announcement today!

By the way, Steorn plans to license this technology over the internet for "a very small fee." Therefore, protecting their profit potential is apparently not the reason for their recent actions.
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That article mentions:

Steorn is contractually obliged to publish whatever the scientists conclude in full.
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Does anyone have a link to confirm that? From what I saw of the contracts the panel signed, it seemed to me the exact opposite was true.
 
Mudd said:
What do you suspect?
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That you're a Steorn shill

Mudd said:
Anyway, my next thread is going to be on the topic of global warming; make what you will of that...
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I reckon that you'll talk about CO2 causing disastrous climate change, be a down on nuclear power and alternative energy and conclude that the Steorn device will save us.

How am I doing?
 
From Stellafane's link, post #20:

Mr McCarthy revealed that if the technology is validated in scientific tests, the company plans to licence it over the internet to any company who wants it for 'a very small fee'.


Anyone else notice the BIG "if"?
I was under the impression that the device worked. Period.
Doesn't matter what one may think-either this works, or it does not.


I say "not".
 
Mudd said:
One can patent technology, but not the scientific principles underlying it.

If you patent your start-stop device and start selling it, you'll make money until someone develops a continuous-motion device based on the aforementioned scientific principles.

At that point, you'll make no money at all, because the continuous-motion version is more desirable and marketable.

The developer of the continuous-motion device will make money until someone develops a solid-state device, at which point the continuous-motion device will be as worthless as the start-stop one.

You could go ahead and market the start-stop version and hope that you're lucky enough to develop the continuous-motion and solid-state devices before anyone else, but that would be risky.

Your best bet would be to not reveal your technology until you developed the solid-state device yourself.
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Wrong.

If you don't patent it and then sell one, the buyer can simply reverse engineer it, and build their own for cheaper (no R&D costs to recover). This would drive the inventor out of business very quickly. The whole point of the patent is to prevent that from happening. A patent is there to protect the IP of the inventor.

If you decide to not sell it, but build a whole bunch and sell the energy directly, you rely on secrecy to protect you. Given that the development of a free energy device would be the most important event in the history of mankind, I suspect that it would be rather difficult to keep the design a secret.

So, the only reason why no patent has been applied for (that I can think of) is that they know it will be rejected, since it does not work.
 
Grimoire said:
So, the only reason why no patent has been applied for (that I can think of) is that they know it will be rejected, since it does not work.
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So far they have one published patent application, but it's for something they've already said isn't part of their device. They claim to have filed some other applications, but so far, nothing else has been published, and they haven't said when they applied, so it's hard to predict when they should be expected to be published. Under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which is how their other application was filed, the applications are published after 18 months.

Since this has been going on since September, we can conclude that at least some applications were filed about then, so we may not see anything for another 7+ months. After that, their claims to have filed for patents get a lot more suspect if no applications get published.
 
JQH said:
Call me old mr suspicious but am I the only one who finds it odd that someone's very first - and so far only - post is intended to persuade us that Steorn might actually have something?
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Well, Old Mr. Suspicious, apparently they're demonstrating the "device" even as we type:

http://www.steorn.com/orbo/demo/

Alas, there seem to be some "technical difficulties."

M.
 
Mudd said:
If you patent your start-stop device and start selling it, you'll make money until
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There's your problem. If the inventor is worried about people copying it, then the solution is to not sell it.

Steorn could easily make if he bought a warehouse and filled it with over-unity devices. As long as he chose a city that requires the electric company to buy back power from customers, he could add more and more machines and make more and more money.

If one has a goose that lays golden eggs, then selling the eggs can be more profitable than selling the goose.
 
In one of the other Steorn threads, I quote an article that explains how their actions really do make good business sense, if they are trying to demonstrate to potential advertising clients that they can grab and keep media attention.
 
Beady said:
In one of the other Steorn threads, I quote an article that explains how their actions really do make good business sense, if they are trying to demonstrate to potential advertising clients that they can grab and keep media attention.
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Sorry, but they really haven't grabbed or kept media attention. This has been pretty much ignored by the media.
 
tkingdoll said:
Sorry, but they really haven't grabbed or kept media attention. This has been pretty much ignored by the media.
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I disagree. They've managed to get a fair share of the geek/net culture's attention. (not that they have any faith in the system, but enough are laughing at it). I've seen it on Engadget, Slashdot and a lot of forums, like bad astronomy and such. Although most of the attention hasn't been positive, but rather "lets see what these @$$clowns are trying to pull with this"

They were on foxnews and msnbc a couple times - not that that means anything. But hey, it's hard to get a lot of attention with something this crazy.
 
Ladewig said:
If one has a goose that lays golden eggs, then selling the eggs can be more profitable than selling the goose.
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Unless someone figures out how to make their own golden goose. I doubt the design would stay secret for too long.
 
DRBUZZ0 said:
I disagree. They've managed to get a fair share of the geek/net culture's attention. (not that they have any faith in the system, but enough are laughing at it). I've seen it on Engadget, Slashdot and a lot of forums, like bad astronomy and such. Although most of the attention hasn't been positive, but rather "lets see what these @$$clowns are trying to pull with this"

They were on foxnews and msnbc a couple times - not that that means anything. But hey, it's hard to get a lot of attention with something this crazy.
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I'm talking about mainstream media outlets.

They have about 4 ticks in the 10 boxes that go into a successful viral campaign. So if that is their intention, they have not succeeded.
 
Grimoire said:
Unless someone figures out how to make their own golden goose. I doubt the design would stay secret for too long.
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Why do you doubt it could be kept secret? The scenario I described, the inventor could just paint some panes of glass, put them on the roof, and tell neighbors that he is running a new type of solar cell to generate all that electricity.
 
The demo is only 5 minutes from our office in London.. I popped down there today.

So very dissapointed. I had hoped I'd see what it looked like.

You know, with such strong lights, they missed out on an opportunity to use solar power :-)

http://www.mechtopia.org.uk/images/steorn.jpg
 
DRBUZZ0 said:
I disagree. They've managed to get a fair share of the geek/net culture's attention. (not that they have any faith in the system, but enough are laughing at it). I've seen it on Engadget, Slashdot and a lot of forums, like bad astronomy and such. Although most of the attention hasn't been positive, but rather "lets see what these @$$clowns are trying to pull with this"

They were on foxnews and msnbc a couple times - not that that means anything. But hey, it's hard to get a lot of attention with something this crazy.
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I came across the demo announcement via Salon the other day, and promptly posted the link, above. The Salon item was totally skeptical.

I am absolutely not surprised at their failure to show anything. I wonder if anyone actually expected a positive result.

M.
 
their claim is incredible, their whole approach is incredible, i am incredulous :)

if they have something that works, why not just patent it, market it and become the richest company in the world? Why bother with scientific validation? If it works then scientific validation will inevitably follow.
 
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