OverUnity prize money 15825 US$ total until now

[midnight_blue]

I have to agree with sauron.
As long as it is overunity it should not matter. 50 watts may not seem to be high, but I have not seen anything that would even come close.

[prajna]

@mrl: Do you have the funds to 1) patent the idea, and 2) protect the patent?  You see, a patent doesn't protect your idea unless you actively prosecute anyone who infringes the patent (unless you patent in India, where the government prosecutes patent infringements).

What people forget is that ideas just come to you out of the aether, they are never 'your' ideas at all.  Ideas just float around and we tune into them.  Try not to have an idea and see what happens.  Try to just not think and (unless you are a yogi) thoughts will continue to come, regardless.

A patent is just another idea, a convention.  It doesn't stop someone stealing an idea, it simply means you may have recourse in a court of law to prosecuting someone if they infringe it.

Quite frankly, if someone manages to develop a free energy system that is widely and cheaply realisable then the world will become such an entirely different place that patents will no longer matter; people will again realise that, ultimately, everything is free and nobody 'owns' anything.  Think about it: if a device uses energy from the sun, is it possible to say that you own that energy from the sun?  The whole ownership concept is a purely imaginary idea in the first place.  The idea that America can 'protect' its oil in the middle east is outrageous!

Ideas are as cheap as the air you breath and are as easily available, except that your culture has taught you that the reverse is true.  Remember back to before you went to school (where you were taught that learning is difficult) and you will realise that what I have said is true.  Give them away for free and you will find that newer and greater ideas will take their place.  Whilst you are trying to profit from an idea you will be so bound up in all the ideas required to protect and profit by it that you will have no room for new creative ideas.

rant over.

[mrl]

@mrl: Do you have the funds to 1) patent the idea, and 2) protect the patent?  You see, a patent doesn't protect your idea unless you actively prosecute anyone who infringes the patent (unless you patent in India, where the government prosecutes patent infringements).

What people forget is that ideas just come to you out of the aether, they are never 'your' ideas at all.  Ideas just float around and we tune into them.  Try not to have an idea and see what happens.  Try to just not think and (unless you are a yogi) thoughts will continue to come, regardless.

A patent is just another idea, a convention.  It doesn't stop someone stealing an idea, it simply means you may have recourse in a court of law to prosecuting someone if they infringe it.

Quite frankly, if someone manages to develop a free energy system that is widely and cheaply realisable then the world will become such an entirely different place that patents will no longer matter; people will again realise that, ultimately, everything is free and nobody 'owns' anything.  Think about it: if a device uses energy from the sun, is it possible to say that you own that energy from the sun?  The whole ownership concept is a purely imaginary idea in the first place.  The idea that America can 'protect' its oil in the middle east is outrageous!

Ideas are as cheap as the air you breath and are as easily available, except that your culture has taught you that the reverse is true.  Remember back to before you went to school (where you were taught that learning is difficult) and you will realise that what I have said is true.  Give them away for free and you will find that newer and greater ideas will take their place.  Whilst you are trying to profit from an idea you will be so bound up in all the ideas required to protect and profit by it that you will have no room for new creative ideas.

rant over.

A patent is a public claim notice and nothing more.  It is a way to stake your claim.

Hmmmmm....

So --- if someone works his fingers to the bone in order to bring something to fruition what you are saying is people should be able to just come and benefit by it and not be obligated to give anything in return.  If, let's say, he spent ten years of his life and $100,000 of his own money what you are saying is he does not own the work he has produced and, therefore, has no moral right to withhold the product of his labour.  He should just give it all way so others can benefit by it, most likely leaving him to die penniless. If he should be poor and starving he would have no right to complain.

Not much of an incentive is it?  Why would I want to do that?  However, there's no accounting for charity, which I believe in.  But some people cannot afford to be that charitable.  Everyone has their own reasons.

I believe they tried this kind of thing already.  It's called "communism" (every man according to his needs).  As you well know, that was not a successful model because it removed the incentive to work.

In order for people to come up with ideas, and work hard to bring them to fruition, there must be some sort of an incentive for them to do this.  You can say all the things you said above because you have not worked your fingers to the bone (years of your life and a lot of money) trying to get something to work.  If you did, I'm confident that you would want some sort of reward, such as an easer life, which money can buy.  However, as I said, there's no accounting for charity.  It's up to you.

As for your theory on where ideas come from I cannot prove nor disprove it.  However,  that really isn't the point.  The point is, the one who did the work is the one who has the moral right to benefit from it.  You cannot seriously say that: "the one who didn't do the work has the moral right to benefit from it".  If such was the case then anyone could come and take your house, your car, your food and the cloths on your back and you would have no moral right to complain.  So, in fact, property rights do exist.  They exist because if they didn't your life would be in constant danger (it's pretty hard to live without food and shelter).

Rant over.

[hartiberlin]

Here's a likely scenario: I give my design to the world, then some huge company who can mass produce it takes it and starts making big money off it, leaving me nothing but maybe some pats on the back and public recognition

Correct

Hi,
but as it is public domain, not just only one company will make , but very many companies,
so the competition would be very high, which means there is not much margain in the
sales of these devices, so they would not profit too much.

Also we as the community could force these compaies to pay to charity and to the
inventor some royalities ,
otherwise we could make "bad mouth" campaign against the company,
that does not pay these royalities.

Also you could demand as the inventor from the average buyer, that he will
donate 1 month worth of utility bills of money to you and if only 10 % of the people,
who buy the device will do this, you will get massive money
and finally the fame to be the inventor who changed the world.
History will never forget you.
This alone would be the most thrilling incentive at least for me...

Regards, Stefan.

[gn0stik]

All of that would have to be specified in the license ahead of time. GPL doesn't allow this kind of customization. MIT has an open source license as well, it's pretty liberal and might allow for some minor tweaking to allow for charity donation demands by manufacturers, or a small donation to the inventor. Not sure.

At any rate, I'll test one if it ever comes up.

Regards,
Rich