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Device is patented, patent # 5,764,518 all rights reserved.
Some would have you think that it is. Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Dr. Ralph Merkle have attacked me in a somewhat unceremonious manner which I found quite surprising:
http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/3.16.htm
I usually do not respond to such absurd commentary but others out there, not understanding the nature of Self-replicating entities and patents in general have pressed the issue for my rebuttal. Therefore, I will acquiesce to a tedious dissection of the attack which is quite necessary to competently debunk it at all in its profuse and extravagant state. The following enumerated reasons should shed light to the fact that these assertions are simply a rat's nest of nefarious deceit:
1. Above all the other statements I will make in response to this attack I will point out that a working prototype was presented to the patent office in 1998 when the claim of "independent operability" was begrudgingly allowed by the examiner in patent 5,764,518. This transpired when before that a filling in an earlier patent 5,659,477 was denied seeing how it was such a far reaching claim and when no prototype was presented with it. This is clearly presented in the patent case history, something Freitas and Merkle have conveniently ignored. Was the patent examiner hallucinating? I think not. In fact he took great pains to protect the USPTO's image and forced new claims on software and more description which Freitas and Merkle have seemed to enjoy labeling as overly broad which is ridiculous and not true, considering. They have not done their research properly before writing the attack. Again, this is part of the patent case record (AKA: "File Wrapper") and the rest of the story.
2. Freitas and Merkle should simply be ignored, as public attacks using broad generality and innuendo should always be. There is absolutely no actual, credible dysfunction pointed out about my technology or patent descriptions at all anywhere within their dubious attack, that would in the remotest sense serve to lessen the enablement of the descriptions so disclosed in any of the patents nor did the attack point out any genuine errors specifically. Where are any actual stated dysfunctional facts, aside from the very general comments? Further, as they admit the patents are well drawn and they dare only to mouth off in the court of popular opinion. Seeing how they are major competitors this is a very bias attack, as well, certainly not independent in the least.
Why attack me now many years later? I'm not tooled up to present another huge self-replicating system right now and no investor will invest just to do that on 1990s class technology just to prove a point. How disingenuous. How convenient for them. I publicized it broadly then, requesting witnesses. Where were their arguments then? I will tell you where, they were working on their "bottom up" technology of self-replicators that failed ("bottom up" means fabricating from atoms up, "top down" means the reverse, what I do). I've always ridiculed them on that and justifiably so. Where's their actual products after all these years? Now they want to move in on my functional work. Particularly, my "Trolley Car Method".
3. Freitas and Merkle are now attempting to "bust" my patent by wrongly stating that John von Neumann somehow disclosed prior art before my patents in many of his writings on self-replicators in the 1950s. First off, there was little fanfare with von Neumann going on back in the time period in 1998 when my patent was filed with the famous claim on independent operability. Richard Feynman was the scientist of the moment then for those of you who care to remember. This, until Freitas and Merkle and several other suspicious media loudmouths that were my direct competitors like Matt Moses and Dr. K. Eric Drexler and their sycophants began to strongly publicize von Neumann. At the same time they began to ignore my work yet pursue grants on my technology. The pick of von Neumann was quite deftly done. A scientist long dead who wrote at length and in a very cryptic manner, difficult to make argument on.
To debunk this I'll point out that von Neumann admitted his work was not rigorous, never patented a self-replicator, nor ever once claimed to have a workable design. My self-replicator as disclosed in patent 5,764,518 is an entirely different design, excepting obvious features that are not patentable such as searching out and acquiring materials to fabricate itself out of, moving them to fabrication sites, using control software to move around etc. Such disclosures are absolutely required and was required of myself and any other patent applicant in order to "fully disclose" the patented technology. My, first filed self-replicating actuators, trolley car means, and discrete evolution means are the primary enabling features of the F-Unit system and none are disclosed in von Neumann's lengthy cryptic writings nor anywhere else prior to 1998 when the first independent operability claims were allowed. Any "overly broad" material seen was forced on me by the examiner who wanted more disclosure material of this complex mechanism which I would have preferred otherwise not to have though now get blamed for . Deceitfully blamed for "over patenting" by Freitas, Merkle and other detractors, that is.
Keep in mind, however that we are talking about the first design of a device able to morph mass structure (known as "programmable material" these days) so broad and numerous claims were in order anyway seeing how it could morph into most shapes and deserved such claims seeing how it is original work. The broad claims are only attributed when used with or about the self-replication process therein, which is entirely new art and deserving and limiting as well to that only which self-replicates. The disgusting part of this argument is the fact that "greed-baiters" (as I call them) attack me for patenting down the "entire design space of artificial kinematic self-replicating machines" as something nefarious instead of giving me credit for inventing so many innovations at once which first enabled "independent operability". Used to be scientists were justifiably praised when they put forward mass volumes of innovative ideas and well rewarded. Not any more. The "open source" movement seeks to steal all innovation, like they did at Napster when they stole music with no good reason or even decent excuses as to why. I have not seen one good valid reason for mass general stealing of intellectual property, particularly patents.
Further, there was genuine concern that it would be very difficult to protect, which seems to have come to fruition as feared with these attacks and infringements. The lawyers of the top patent firms on earth rendered it all at great expense to my investors. I trusted them to do it not knowing much of the process then myself.
4. Further, I had, in good faith approached several scientists to collaborate amongst including Drexler and later Adrian Bowyer and Cornell University New York but was met with complete indifference. When we noticed the beginnings of stealing of my ideas and other scientific misconduct including heavy government interferences I immediately made plans for a secure patent to mitigate this activity. I have now gone into trade secret mode which should have thrilled open source hounds but as I predicted it has not ameliorated that crowd's attitudes as they are just looking for trouble at any turn for a bone to demagogue politically. Too bad, I had hoped to work with them thinking maybe there was some method to their madness. I know now after years of dealing with them they just want to steal. Period. Patent haters just hate patents, it would seem. No variance on that attitude.
5. In April in 2004 Freitas worked with Matt Moses on the Toth-Fejel NIAC project proposal:
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/883Toth-Fejel.pdf
(also see large depiction of this at bottom of this page)
They employed my trolley car means and colorized tile means and if you examine the text in their attack closely, Moses is seen supporting Freitas and Merkle's attack in link 1130 in their book Kinematic Self-replicating machines. Any logical thinker would deduct that this unruly attack was done in cover of actual infringing going on involving both Moses and Freitas with the NIAC proposal.
It is also suspicious in this because after Freitas and Merkle invited the whole world of replicating engineers to infringe my patent in the pages of their book, Cornell University began employing the trolley car technique in their so called "self-replicator" (which is just a robot stacker and a very limited self-replicator at best) see it here and see my illustration to right explaining how it infringes my Trolley Car Means and see the Trolley car claims further below herein as they exist in the patent. At any rate, note that the value of "limited self-replicators" (which is all these NIAC and Cornell replicators are) was well recognized and conferred with great extol in my patents as very useful so any allegation that I did not anticipate protections on such and might have these limited replicators be held as insignificant infringements would be in error. The least they could do is give me credit for my innovations. Another scientist going along with this invite seems to be K. Eric Drexler who touts the colorized tile technique as he revamped a new article on his site about the NIAC Toth-Fejel project:
http://www.foresight.org/Conference/AdvNano2004/Abstracts/Toth-Fejel2/Toth-Fejel_tech.pdf
6. The tactic of everybody making "limited" self-replicators and calling them actual self-replicators and touting them as equally important is also a disgusting open source patent busting tactic as I'm being ignored thereby for purposes of infringement and stealing of my ideas upon the world's first independent self-replicator and grants are being denied and redirected from me. Such is the case with Cornell, NIAC, and the RepRap's so called "self-replicators" that do not self-replicate their smallest parts at all nor their actuators in the least not to mention quite a few other features. None of them can
self-replicate more than an automobile can. It's absurd.
7. The revisioning battle of words and terminology is heavily at hand as Mechagenics, Reproductive Mechanics, F-Units and Digital Referenced Areas (DRA) all mine are deliberately being supplanted with Cellular Automata, Kinematic Self-replicating Machines and Von Neumann Universal Constructors, all von Neumann speak and clearly done for purposes of cover on grants being misappropriated via scientific misconduct and actual infringements.
8. On the one hand Freitas and Merkle say the patent is not any good, in the next breath say it is too broad then in the next complain that it "laid claim to the entire design space of artificial kinematic self-replicating machines" and use phrases like "The breathtaking scope of the Collins patents" and play the greed card by calling me "acquisitive" while pursuing grants to develop key features of my technology for their own selves. This is simple dyslexic lunacy and both Freitas and Merkle should know better than this because they have their own extensive "greedy" patents on this science. Merkle tripped over my patent's prior art in his filing soon after mine and Freitas should know better as he's a lawyer to boot. No excuse for this.
They even hold up typical boilerplate patent phrases to ridicule such as "The foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and operation shown and described except where specifically claimed, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to as falling within the scope of the claims." This is used extensively as run of the mill boilerplate language in patents.
They even attack the fact that I am required to present the preferred materials, which were electrically conductive and insulators and magnetically attractive materials (along with stating the preferred embodiment) saying "Since all materials may be considered as either insulators or conductors, this claim would seem to encompass all known physical building materials." The discussion on this in my patent is particularly pertinent because what it is saying is that no matter what the materials, all they have to be is of electrically conductive or insulators which is important facts in describing a valuable aspect of its performance and makeup. This ridiculous comment is as stupid as can be and downright laughable. And notice how they say "seem to means" there. Don't you know anything Freitas and Merkle? They also used the vague phrase "appears" instead of is as a credible commentator would deduce if sincere.
9. It should be pointed out that this is a just, respectable patent and does not seek to patent small obvious widgets on anticipated upcoming undeveloped technologies like some patent "trolls" would do like patenting the Internet address bar, for example. It patents down a key valuable new technology in its entirety with vast numbers of truly new art features. All Freitas and Merkle and Cornell New York want to do is steal several of the widgets of mine to make their cheap knock offs appear to work quickly as limited self-replicators and video a cheap parlor trick and pass it off to the public. No real world self-replicator self-replicates quickly like that. Mine took six months.
10. It is easy in hindsight to attack a patent just because it mentions obvious or prior art in its description. It is required by the USPTO that an innovator disclose the entire preferred embodiment of a mechanism which may include prior art features and certainly obvious features of any known (self-replicator) but only what is set forth in the claims is what one is allowed and given patent protection on. One must differentiate in any fair patent evaluation on this, something Freitas and Merkle have grossly neglected to do. Most patents are made up of several pieces of prior art and obvious art put together into a new art. Few, if any patent exists outside these parameters.
11. The same nefarious accusers of greed are working in tandem with large multinational corporations who in actual greed are seeking to water down patent laws and other intellectual property rights simply to pay less royalties for innovations within big business. This is the real source of your "open source" movement and "globalization" movements and "patent reforms" and "patent harmonization" movements who play the greed card all the way to their big banks. Did it ever occur to you "open sourcers" that someone has to get paid to come up with this technology in the first place in the period just before the utopia that Adrian Bowyer aspires to with my self-replicating ideas ? (I suggested the home self-replicator market in my 1990s patents repeatedly and predicted the results long before Bowyer even was in the picture). I just need to get paid for my work which is just not happening due to these miscreants and the work is not progressing due to lack of the kind of funding this technology deserves. It is very unlikely another type of self-replicator will be devised that can operate without employing my Trolley Car Method short of the ATP musculature method employed by nature and I devised the best implementation of it so the funding needs placed here not with those who come up with cheap knock-offs of the same.
More power to utopia via self-replicating technologies with all my support, the sooner the better and then we all can have it for free in an "open source" world but those of us who invent it need to eat in the period between now and when it occurs and need our work funded in the meantime until proper deployment is see to be had. Leaving this point out is flawed logic but something infringers and doers of scientific misconduct deliberately go about as nothing has been said or studied on this important and obvious point in all the high dollar books sold by players of the greed card like Freitas and Merkle. I'll wager you their income far exceeds mine, I'll take any wager on that, by the way.
On that, since my ethical operating basis has become such an extreme concern to some in this business I'll pose this: If some college, foundation or private funding program or the like promises me a decent living and a modest house I will relinquish royalties on the F-Unit system but I will not relinquish control of what might be dangerous which makes patenting it down all the better an idea anyway. Who better to control it than the one who devised it? On this the F-Unit System is safe by design if you read the implementation specifications on my web site HOME PAGE but only when deployed as described.
I am also spending huge amounts of time developing strong countermeasures against "Grey Goo" abuses and the like (doomsday scenarios). I proceeded on a well planned course with F-Units unlike the chaos rabble-rousing of Freitas and Merkle in their book which is totally a machination to circumvent my patents at length that has wreaked chaos already within this profession. It is my strong commitment and resolve that there will be no Chernobyl nor Three Mile Island in self-replicator technology in our future or a Nagasaki or Hiroshima scenario. For all of us working in this profession these were agonizing lessons we paid dearly to learn from. We must learn from those mistakes and get it right this time as another chance may not be had. The technology is here, ignoring it is like the absurd ostrich who has its head in the sand. The sooner we get to utopia the better and the safer we will be so best send the funding where the prospects exists and that is here not the stealers of my ideas. I will submit to you, it is those who are greedy, not I and I pledge to you that I shall do my very best to manage it well. Further, I listen long to all the wise bringing sound and valuable advice.
12. Lastly I'll point out that Freitas and Merkle's diatribe is a copyright infringement. Note that my patent description was copyrighted. Freitas and Merkle published far beyond the 400 words from the "heart" of my work when they used it under fair use law to trigger that infringement. Note in the precedence setting Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, case the use of less than 400 words taken from President Ford's memoir by the political opinion magazine involved was interpreted to be infringement because those used few words represented "the heart of the book" and were considered, as such, substantial.
This was just another finger in the eye much like Freitas and Moses's use of colorized tiles (Drexler as well) and Cornell's use of a box, depicted in my patent and with good use... but Cornell used it and didn't need to with their design. Another deliberate bad faith finger in the eye.
Charles Michael Collins (C) Copyright March 9, 2008
TROLLEY CAR MEANS DESCRIBED ETC.
The principle claims in the patent describing the "Trolley Car Means" as I call it publicly is CLAIMS: 63, 64, 65, 66 and 67 in patent 5,764,518:
"63. A fabrication system as described in claim 55 further comprising a plurality of movable legs and wherein said indices are conductive regions adapted for coupling to the bottom of said legs and are interconnected to a source of current"
and:
"64. A fabrication system as described in claim 63 wherein said legs are conductive and act as commutators to provide current to said fabrication tool and the weight of said tool being adequate to establish electrical contact between said legs and said indices."
and:
"65. A fabrication system as described in claim 63 wherein said conductive indices are interconnected to a source of current through a column of conductive tiles."
and:
"66. A fabrication system as described in claim 63 wherein there are a plurality of conductive indices on each piece."
and:
"67. A fabrication system as described in claim 63 wherein said pieces may be of different sizes, at least some of which may be used as indices and others of which may be conductive to provide a source of power to said tool."
The description in the patent further describes how tiles can be interchanged with (be used instead of) "blocks" or have "blocks" made up of tiles with these conductive centers and an interchangeably connectible "block" indeed was even pictured in the patent drawings (Figures 13(a) through 13(b) for use in fabricating this way to arrive at ultimate self-replication like the Cornell and NIAC replicators identically do therefore infringing.
These claims and all through the descriptions of all three patents (including the PCT) discloses a means to provide power and data to a self-replicating entity up through the legs it is walking on or up through umbilicals while it is moving about (much like a trolley car) and fabricating. This lightens the device greatly allowing the computing device controlling it, data storage space and the power source to be very large and off-board. This alone is the pivotal key innovation enabling the "independent operability" (independent self-replication and existence) of this first self-replicating device called
F-Units (for Fabricating Units). Von Neumann never disclosed any sort of Trolley Car type mechanism, nor self-replicating actuators, Freitas and Merkle's allegations notwithstanding.
Also note that the Cornell so-called "Self-Replicator" is situated in a box, just like my F-Units need to be, however the Cornell device has no particular use of that.
COLORIZED TILE DISCUSSION:
Please note claims 10, 11, 12 and 13 in patent number 5,764,518:
"10. A fabrication system as described in claim 1 including a display system for displaying all or part of the object to be fabricated in either planar or three dimensional views, wherein each pixel of said display represents a corresponding one of said pieces."
and:
"11. A fabrication system as described in claim 10 wherein each pixel of said display is displayed in a unique color representative of the type of material of said object represented by said pixel."
and:
"12. A fabrication system as described in claim 11 wherein the particular color of a pixel may be changed to change the type of material used by the system in fabrication of the object."
and:
"13. A fabrication system as described in claim 10 further comprising a library of selectable object images which may be interactively selected for fabrication by the system."
These claims patented the idea of representing the tiles being used in fabricating, as represented within the CAD-CAM software used to control the process of self-replicating and further being sent over the Internet being represented singularly or in groups or in bulk in different colors with the different colors representing areas in the structure of various materials when used within self-replicating software or when used within software that depicts self-replicating machine building units (like tile and block units) transmitted over the Internet. Note the NIAC so called self-replicator proposal depicts this (and as well is being depicted over the Internet via the site) therefore twice infringing (see first illustration of the blocks, which as well can receive data and power to reorient up through each other, therefore infringing both the Trolley Car Means and Colorized tile Means) as seen here:
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/883Toth-Fejel.pdf
