Unlitigated, unlicensed patents can impact the economy
Professor Lemley's "rational ignorance" paper and later "gold plating" paper all ignore the most basic point of the patent system: to obtain [accurate] public disclosure (not innovation, commercialization, licensing or litigation). Importantly, Lemley's arguments ignore that people affirmatively invest in things because of the presence of patents. For example, people have invested in BlackLight's technology without having licensed or litigated it. As we see from Bob Park's January 2006 post [below], people are still investing in BlackLight. The Patent Office should not be a party to facilitating bad investments anymore than the journal Science should trick people about the current state of advance in embryonic stem cells. Lemley misses the big picture about patents, and, in view of his misidentification of the inventor of the integrated circuit, misses the big picture about past technology. Just because a patent isn't licensed or litigated does NOT mean it doesn't affect our economy.
from Bob Park's WN (13 Jan 06):
Since 1991, (WN 26 Apr 91) , WN has followed the strange case of the "hydrino," tiny hydrogen atoms in a "state below the ground state," according to Randell Mills, M.D., author of The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics. We haven't heard much about Mills and his company, BlackLight Power, since they lost a patent appeal three years ago (WN 6 Sep 02; IPBiz note: there was a separate BlackLight patent that was not invalidated in that action). But with the start of the new year, Dow Jones Newswires ran a story about deep-pocket financial gurus that are backing BlackLight. A retired head of energy banking at Morgan Stanley commented that physicists are "hostile" to Mills ideas. Bob Park, was the only physicist quoted. Sure enough, he was hostile. "Park represents an entrenched physics establishment that fears losing billions in funding and having its work discredited," Mills explained.
One discussion of the BlackLight funding is at
http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/01/04/blacklight_power_gets_50m_but_is_it_profound_or_utter_nonsense.html
Notable story today by VentureWire (sub required) about the company founded by medical doctor Randell Mills, called Blacklight Power, which claims to have found an alternative source of energy, and has gotten $50M from respected investors.
This is significant, because alternative energy is a hot sector right now.
Some are calling Mills' work profound. Others are calling it "utter nonsense". Basically, Mills claims to have discovered a process which generates "hydrinos" -- a previously unknown form of hydrogen in which electrons move below the ground state to release energy. Numerous mainstream physicists, however, are calling such a result impossible, according to the piece.
[IPBiz post 1160]
from Bob Park's WN (13 Jan 06):
Since 1991, (WN 26 Apr 91) , WN has followed the strange case of the "hydrino," tiny hydrogen atoms in a "state below the ground state," according to Randell Mills, M.D., author of The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics. We haven't heard much about Mills and his company, BlackLight Power, since they lost a patent appeal three years ago (WN 6 Sep 02; IPBiz note: there was a separate BlackLight patent that was not invalidated in that action). But with the start of the new year, Dow Jones Newswires ran a story about deep-pocket financial gurus that are backing BlackLight. A retired head of energy banking at Morgan Stanley commented that physicists are "hostile" to Mills ideas. Bob Park, was the only physicist quoted. Sure enough, he was hostile. "Park represents an entrenched physics establishment that fears losing billions in funding and having its work discredited," Mills explained.
One discussion of the BlackLight funding is at
http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/01/04/blacklight_power_gets_50m_but_is_it_profound_or_utter_nonsense.html
Notable story today by VentureWire (sub required) about the company founded by medical doctor Randell Mills, called Blacklight Power, which claims to have found an alternative source of energy, and has gotten $50M from respected investors.
This is significant, because alternative energy is a hot sector right now.
Some are calling Mills' work profound. Others are calling it "utter nonsense". Basically, Mills claims to have discovered a process which generates "hydrinos" -- a previously unknown form of hydrogen in which electrons move below the ground state to release energy. Numerous mainstream physicists, however, are calling such a result impossible, according to the piece.
[IPBiz post 1160]
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 5:28 PM
1 Comments:
I have no idea whether Mills is a crackpot or a genius. However, I've been through his latest material in some detail and there is more to it than has been discussed. He has published 'exact', closed-form solutions to molecular structures, a feat that has never been achieved with regular Quantum Mechanics after decades of searching. 'Orbitspheres' may indeed be unfounded. However, they have produced a more accurate model of molecular dynamics than QM. I wouldn't be so fast to discount it. See the Blacklight site:
http://www.blacklightpower.com/new.shtml
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