So! This whole deal turned out to be really dirty. Even more so than I expected when we found out the Apco “damage control consultants” were involved.

Some interesting facts:

• Rossi was supposed to be paid for all COP>2.6 (the Lugano Report). For COP>6 he was supposed to be paid $89M. In between COP of 2.6 to 6, he was supposed to be paid and percentage of the $89M related to the COP achieved.
• Fabio Penon was the ERV responsible for certifying the IH Validations test in April 30th to May 3rd 2013. These tests consisted of two 24 hr tests with 30 E-Cats (1MW) and a 15 hr Hot-Cat test. All tests were obviously successfull achieving COP>6 since $10M was paid to Rossi. At the time of payment all E-Cat IP was delivered to IH.
• Fabio Penon was then accepted as the ERV for the Guaranteed Performance Test in Florida by IH.
• In the orignial License agreement the COP threshold was 1 to 4 for payments. So it was renegotiated after the Validation test.
• IH was the customer of the first 1MW plant. It was purchased for $1.5M befor validation.
• The patent situation is clearly defined in the license agreement (§7.1). It is all Leonardo responsibilites. IH may participate in prosecution and maintenence if it deems it desirable.
• There is a 2 year “Covenant Not to Compete” in the license agreement.

It seems obvious that Darden strategy was to keep IH seperate from Cherokee and that he aimed to raise money seperately for IH, to reduce his and Cherokee risk. Money was raised to pay Rossi $11.5M and keep it running during the test period.

It also seems obvious that Darden/IH did not intend to do the 350 day test at all. The plant was delivered to Raleigh in August 2013. For a year Darden failed to secure a facility for testing (really weird). One year later Rossi found a customer (JM Chemical) for the plant which also agreed to pay IH/Darden for the energy delivered. The customer is independent from Rossi according to the agreement.

The only sensible conclusion is that Darden only intended to get the plant for “personal” research and reverse engineering, and did not intend to test it according to the license agreement. Actually Darden only needed to find a facility for testing, not even a independent customer. He was not able to do even that. Now IH even got paid $1000 per day during the test …

This is troublesome, since it hints that either

• the goal of Darden was only to validate and pay for the “IP”, buy and ship the container to his premises, reverse engineer it and delay Rossi as much as possible keeping him in the container. He never intended to pay the $89M. He was probably counting on frontrunning Rossi together with hos other investments in LENR, or
• Darden/IH was put under pressure from unkown directions to delay Rossi at any cost (all expenses paid for, even legal ones), or
• hopefully that Darden had the intention of paying from the start, but failed to raise the money for it.

Darden however agreed to Fabio Penon as ERV and to the start of the GP test. I guess he was buying time to frontrun or only to delay. He also contracted and paid for Fabiani and West to monitor and report on the test. As well as 50% of the since long agreed upon ERV.

We also know that IH made the Lugano Reactors using Rossi IP. Darden stated it himself. At that point he had spent a year working on the Ferraro reactor in Raleigh. So with this Darden started to advertise having acquired the IP instead of the license. He also seems to have shared this IP with competitors of Rossi, etc. And made patent applications on their own covering the E-Cat technology, even outside their territory …

I guess, it is up to the lawyers to debate what could be considered Rossi IP or covered by his patent. It will probably take ages.

It’s kind of hard to see though, how IH/Darden will present their claim to not pay Rossi. They would have to disqualify the 350 day test even though they;

1. obviously accepted Fabio Penon several times as an independent ERV
2. paid for West and Fabiani to monitor and report on the test continously.
3. the patent application made by IH during the test period does not help them either if they are going to state that Rossi is a complete fraud since 2012. The same goes for the Lugano reactors and the plant recieved and studied in Raleigh during a year …

This is however not that important since the E-CatX entered the game wich is still covered by the patent. Rossi strategy now seems to quickly set up production and start selling products. I agree completely with Rossi that this is the only way. These kind of disruptive revolutionary changes has to come bottom-up.

It remains to be seen how much of a pawn in the game Darden is. Maybe this was not his intention to start with, and maybe he was approached by even bigger fishes that can ensure him that he does not have to pay. In these matters we can not trust the justice system. To much money involved.

The by far best thing that came out of this is the new openness, since it enabled Rossi to speak.

Here are all the docs:

Rossi_et_al_v_Darden_et_al__flsdce-16-21199__0001.0

Rossi_et_al_v_Darden_et_al__flsdce-16-21199__0001.1

Rossi_et_al_v_Darden_et_al__flsdce-16-21199__0001.2

Rossi_et_al_v_Darden_et_al__flsdce-16-21199__0001.3

Rossi_et_al_v_Darden_et_al__flsdce-16-21199__0001.4

And a nice picture of Rossi and the MW Cat from ECAT.COM running his 6 cylinder plant at JM Chemical in Miami, FL.