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World's Oldest Nobel Prize Winner Is Working On Light 'Concentrators' That May Give Everyone Clean, Cheap Energy (businessinsider.com)
Iwastheone shares a report from Business Insider: Arthur Ashkin, the world's oldest Nobel Prize winner, [...] has turned the bottom floor of his house into a kind of laboratory where he's developing a solar-energy-harnessing device. Ashkin's new invention uses geometry to capture and funnel light. Essentially, it relies on reflective concentrator tubes that intensify solar reflections, which could make existing solar panels more efficient or perhaps even replace them altogether with something cheaper and simpler. The tubes are "dirt cheap," Ashkin says -- they cost just pennies to create -- which is why he thinks they "will save the world." He's even got his eye on a second Nobel Prize.
Ashkin's lifelong fascination with light has already saved countless lives. He shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics for his role in inventing a tiny object-levitating technology called optical tweezers, which is essentially a powerful laser beam that can "catch very small things," as Ashkin describes it. Optical tweezers can hold and stretch DNA, thereby helping us probe some of the biggest mysteries of life. [...] Ashkin has already filed the necessary patent paperwork (he holds at least 47 patents to date) for his new invention, but said he isn't ready to share photos of the concentrators with the public just yet. Soon, he hopes to publish his results in the journal Science.
Ashkin's lifelong fascination with light has already saved countless lives. He shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics for his role in inventing a tiny object-levitating technology called optical tweezers, which is essentially a powerful laser beam that can "catch very small things," as Ashkin describes it. Optical tweezers can hold and stretch DNA, thereby helping us probe some of the biggest mysteries of life. [...] Ashkin has already filed the necessary patent paperwork (he holds at least 47 patents to date) for his new invention, but said he isn't ready to share photos of the concentrators with the public just yet. Soon, he hopes to publish his results in the journal Science.
Yes, but let's look at the details. It takes around 10k USD in patent attorney fees to file the simplest of patents, 30-100k is more typical. Trying to do them yourself is a recipe for disaster as you broadcast your ideas without substantial protections. Patent attorneys are so expansive because they need a law degree and typically have a degree in the field they are writing the patent for, so in this case physics or engineering. After your 65k initial investment, if your idea or product becomes popular, many companies will start to copy it which is where defending your IP comes in. It's first to file so he may either be a reason other patents are denied or can start sending cease and desist letters to any offenders.
Contrary to popular belief, patent law cases are far less about being right or wrong than simply using superior legal firepower to overwhelm your opponent. A small company sending a cease and desist to another small company may bleed them into stopping, this won't work against large companies. Against a company like Apple, Samsung, or a university with a law college you will massively lose 98% of the time unless you have similar resources to fight. A good patent challenge starts at around 500k and can easily climb past tens of millions USD in fees you keep needing to pay up front. This overwhelms any small company or inventor and they are cooked. That's why most small companies and inventors simply skip the patent and try to stay on top with nimble innovation (a competitive advantage for the small entity) and through obscurity. The system is really broken.