No - you can dilute it down to the activity level of this "wonder fluid" and then apply it. So have many others. Have a look at your local pharmacy - you'll find many examples of water-repellant creams containing pharma-active ingredients.
You're just being pedantic now. "OK, it doesn't do exactly the same thing, but it does sort of do almost the same thing as other stuff out there". If you close one eye, squint with the other and look at it sideways... In both cases something was produced that appears to work, and has some new, very useful practical applications. We could bicker for ages on exactly how new and useful. Let's wait and see how these products get on in real life.
There is little point in having these threads if all we're going to do is say "wow, what a great idea", without any sort of critical appraisal of what the particular idea is, whether it is, in fact, a valid idea, novel, beneficial, revolutionary etc., etc. The point I am trying to make, regarding the original topic, is that, as far as I can tell, it isn't new. If you look at what little info is on their website, it points you to reports in newspapers, no hard science. The patent (the closest to hard science that I've seen on this topic) seems (I'm not an expert in the electrolysis of saline solutions) like a way of making a known chemical (or to be pedantic for a moment, a known mixture of chemicals), with known properties. It is not something that if you close one eye squint with the other etc. might be similar. It is the SAME. And it has the same applications - hypochlorite has been used for killing bugs forever. This is, or seems to me to be, the Emperor's new clothes. [offtopic-ish]Similarly the lorry driver and his hand-cream - I accept you maybe can't buy "exactly" the same thing at your local pharmacy, but you can buy water-repellant creams with, for example, antibacterial ingredients. To say that it's not the same is like arguing that two shampoos are not the same, because they don't contain exactly the same ingredients. They are both obviously functionally equivalent. If this idea was so revolutionary and brilliant, why did it just make the local news, and not headline the BBC 6 o'clock slot? Why have we heard no more of it?[/offtopic-ish]
The shelf-life isn't. That is what is pointed out to be the (important) difference, and that is the only difference that is being pointed out.
I'm fairly sure that if you scour the literature, you will find data relating pH, concentration and stability of hypochlorite solutions. I'll be very surprised if there's anything there that makes this "discovery" more than a bit of marketing.
For anyone who has never seen a patent in the flesh, the claims section is the most important bit because it is the legal bit - if you do something "commercially", whether or not for profit (you can do what you like in a research context to verify, or otherwise, the contents of the patent) and it falls within the claims of a granted patent, then you are infringing that patent and the person owning it can seek redress through the courts. You can only obtain a patent if what is claimed, ie appears in the claims, is novel. It doesn't matter what is said elsewhere in the patent, if it aint in the claims, it's not covered. Can anyone see "shelf-life", or other words or phrases meaning the same, in those claims? The answer is no. If it was a novel aspect of the stuff, It woulod make sense for them to have claimed it, thus preventing anyone else from capitalising on the idea. However, they didn't. Why? Because there isn't anything novel about it. What we have here is a patent which covers a device or technnology for making this fluid, and the fluid that is made by such a device. The last bit is important - if you use their device to make the stuff, you're infringing. If you dilute sodium hypochlorite to get the same activity level, you're not. As I said, back in post #8, this may be a novel way of making the stuff, but there's nothing novel about the stuff itself.
And again... The only thing that is claimed to be different (novel), is the enhanced shelf-life of the product, not the product itself. This enhanced shelf-life is a result of the novel production method. What they are basicall saying (in my understanding) is: "Hey, you know that really useful stuff Microcyn? Well, before, it only lasted a day. Now, we have invented a new way of making it that makes it last a year!, thus widening its scope of availability and applications. Cool, or what?" I said; "Yes, that is cool." You say: "Pffft. This stuff already existed. So what's new?" I say: "What's new is its enhanced shelf-life." You say: "Well, that is not that they are patenting, they are patenting the new way in which they make it." I say: "Yes, because that is what gives it its new, enhanced shelf-life. I mean, you can't patent shelf-life (and you can't patent the stuff itself, because it already existed). But you can patent how you achieve that enhanced shelf-life. That's the killer innovation." We cool now? Good. I'm moving on.
Well, you may be moving on but you're moving in the wrong direction. You CAN patent improved shelf life. You can patent pretty much ANYTHING that is somehow an improvement over what existed, solves a problem etc. etc, provided it isn't obvious (there are a few other criteria, but I'll keep it short). That's the point of patents. You rightly point out that if it was novel, it would be worth something. They would surely realise the value of it as well. Why not patent it? - because they can't, because it's not novel. And therefore it's not the "killer innovation" you think. At the end of the day, we have an impasse - a clinical psychologist (apologies if I'm mistaken here) who thinks it's novel, and a professional chemist of n years experience that thinks otherwise. You pays yer money.....
right now, i can't put a patent on say serloin steak that lasts 4 years in a fridge. But say I invent a method of making prime steak that was able to last that long? I can't patent the steak when its still serloin steak, as the only differnce is the amount of water i leave in the steak, i can however patent my process. From what i understand this is what its about?
In part, yes. It would make more commercial sense to patent the technology that creates the useful property of an object, than the property itself (otherwise people could use the technology to try and replicate the same property in other objects). Moreover I am not at all sure that you can patent the extended shelf-life of a perishable product in itself --just the distinct quality or technology that resulted in that shelf-life. Either way, to say that Microcyn with a year-long shelf-life isn't new (just this particular way they went about manufacturing it it), would suggest that year-long Microcyn already existed, manufactured in other ways.
Back from a fortnights hol ...... Nexxo: no I'm not saying there was a Microcyn with a year long shelf life. What I'm saying is this: if the new product, with it's extended shelf life was truly novel (as in unexpected or unknown to science) then they could have patented it - that is, it is legal, allowable within patent law etc. to cover such an effect. (TheAnimus: your steak could be patented, as it would not be a "normal" sirloin steak, as they don't last forever in a fridge - provided it is novel, as defined above) Your comment about what makes commercial sense is not correct. It makes more commercial sense to patent the process, the product made by that process (which they have done) and the product itself (independent of the process) and the effect conferred by the composition of the product. This would mean that anyone who makes this stuff by any means whatsoever would need a licence to manufacture and sell - a much more robust position to be in. As it is, they didn't, so someone else can make the same stuff by a method outside their process patent and legally sell it in competition. And, to get a patent, you have to reveal enough detail so that someone "skilled in the art" (ie someone who knows about the particular area of technology, not just an ordinary joe dragged off the dole queue) can understand how it's done. This begs the question: why didn't they patent the extended shelf-life? They obviously went to the trouble of employing a patent lawyer, who would have known this leaves a huge loophole in their coverage. The most likely answer, to my mind, is that it isn't novel, that they know that if you dilute hypochlorite to the same concentration and adjust its pH, you get something that is just as harmless to "multicellular organisms" (as their little video calls people) just as toxic to single-cell organisms, and just as stable over a long period of time. (and, I'm willing to bet - a lot cheaper) That's enough thread revival for today.
And I am willing to bet that if it was that easy, some clever chemist would already have done it and made a buck, or it would be common industry practice. I mean, it sounds easy: "if you dilute hypochlorite to the same concentration and adjust its pH...". Yeah, if we just travel faster than light, space exploration will be a cinch. There has got to be more to it than that, otherwise it would have been done.
Actually, sometimes the obvious things haven't been done. (I'll ignore the "faster than light" stuff: The "there has to be more to it than that, otherwise it would have been done" argument is up there with the one that says "I don't understand it, and scientists can't explain it, so it must prove there is a god", or the classic "if you're so smart, how come you're not rich". All are fallacious.) You can buy hypochlorite off the shelf, pour a bit into a bucket of water and Hey: dilute hypochlorite. People have been doing it for years, and pouring what they didn't use down the drain. When you can do this, there really isn't a need to store the dilute stuff, with or without extended shelf. No perceived need normally means no commercial driving force. There may well be some advantage to their method of production over the traditional electrolysis of brine, but I reckon the product itself is slick marketing of an existing chemical. Good luck to them.
