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> The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property They make a discovery that may significantly benefit all humanity, then they ensur

• pedalpete 16y ago
  From my understanding, they can't patent the physics, and that is the real discovery here. They have potentially hit on a way to create energy from a previously unknown or ignored phenomenon, but just like you can't patent gravity, you can't patent this. Now that people are paying attention to this phenomenon, lots more research will go into the best way of capturing it. Sure all those will likely be patented as well, but there is nothing (in theory) stopping you from developing your own way of capturing this energy and making it freely available to the world.
  • anamax 16y ago
    > They have potentially hit on a way to create energy from a previously unknown or ignored phenomenon, but just like you can't patent gravity, you can't patent this. Not so fast. While you can't patent gravity, you can patent using gravity to do things (subject to novelty and obviousness). That's how Feynmann ended up with a patent on nuclear submarines. You can't patent radioactivity or heating things with radioactivity, but you can patent using heat from radioactivity to do specific things.