General Fusion: An article on them, plus current patent status.

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Chris Bradley
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General Fusion: An article on them, plus current patent status.

Post by Chris Bradley »

There is an article on General Fusion that strikes me as neither a gun-ho, but nor dismissive, discussion on current fusion research (unusual, because such articles typically seem to be bluster and word-smithing).

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/do ... gy-project

>““I came up with a phrase a long time ago that I attribute to Galileo’s last project officer; ‘There’s no virtue in tolerating heresy, much less funding it,’” says Turchi. “Basically, it means any alternative approaches have to be suppressed. You can’t have a guy testifying in congress that he needs a billion dollars and that this is the right way to go (for research) and then have some other outfit or university professor saying, ‘oh I know how to do it for $10 million.’” Turchi offers the history of aviation as an example; in the mid-nineteenth century, if a government wanted to pursue aeronautical research, it would have focused on the most established developments in that area, namely balloons. No government would have financed an experiment into heavier-than-air craft because it was just unheard of.“


In the meanwhile, General Fusion has had 4 goes at getting a patent on its plasma-compression-in-molten-metal-cavity invention in the last couple of years:

20100163130 was rejected, but GF has requested a continued examination (viz. they're still arguing the case).

20110026657 has begun its process, but is ongoing and has not yet had its examination.

20110026658 has not yet had its 'first office action' and is still waiting.

The newsworthy-ish one is 20110243292 which has been 'expressly abandoned'. As far as I understand it, it means they are intentionally and completely dropping the claims they made in this patent application, and will not be able to make those claims again, as they are now published.
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Steven Sesselmann
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Re: General Fusion: An article on them, plus current patent status.

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

Chris,

One has to admire these people for getting their project funded, a lot smarter than any of us.

Their project is ambitious to say the least..

Steven
http://www.gammaspectacular.com - Gamma Spectrometry Systems
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
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