Reverse Cooling?

[Dave Williams]

-> Which would mean that Smokey and Circle Track put the idea into the
-> public domain--so how in#@$$% come the patent office gave Evans a
-> patent??

 You can patent individual things, or you can patent a *combination* of
previous things as a system.  You might try IBM's patent site to see if
there's a hit on MECA.  No way to tell exactly what their patent covers
until you see it.

 The US Patent Office is also notorious for granting patents that
infringe on prior patents; it's the applicant's job to do the searching.
If patents or prior art collide, it's court time, and the attorneys win.