Friday's Patent of the Week

Bill Gates won’t let anything stop him from reaching the peaks of success, not even a hurricane. So, what’s next for Bill Gates?..... The architect of the personal computer revolution is now controlling the weather.

This Friday’s “Patent of the Week,” US Patent Application No. 20090175685 titled: “Water alteration structure movement method and system,” is a member of a group of patent applications which recently published naming none other than William H. Gates, Founder of Microsoft, as one of the inventors. This group of applications revolve (literally and figuratively) around Hurricanes and methods of reducing their formation.

The warm water of the ocean is a primary element in hurricane formation. Common theory is that cooling the water temperatures will aid in dissipating these tropical storms. In fact, NASA believes that in 1998 Hurricane Bonnie left cool waters in its aftermath therefore disrupting the formation of Hurricane Danielle, which was quickly approaching.

Mr. Gates and his fellow co-inventors claim a structure to be placed in a body of water that is capable of lifting cold water from deep below the water surface level to eliminate the warm water needed for hurricane formation. The structure’s propulsion system can be driven by things such as fuel, solar energy or wind.

The feasibility of this type of approach is yet to be determined. Many naysayers think it won’t work since there would be an extremely large surface area of water that would need to be temperature controlled, and controlling the atmosphere may be just as critical as controlling water temperature in hurricane formation.

Mr. Gates has proven himself successful time and time again, so just maybe he is the one to stop these tropical catastrophes. After all, he appears to have an “eye” for success.



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