Steorn assets on the auction block

Michael Ferrier

Thanks to Aiden Sullivan for pointing out that Steorn’s assets are now up up for auction, here. Compared with the rooms full of scopes and testing equipment that have featured in Steorn’s videos, there are relatively few items for sale. Sixteen of the 26 available lots are comprised of engineering/testing equipment. There are seven lots of red aluminum Orbo “skull” cases, two per lot (no indication that there is anything inside them, so they’re likely just empty cases). Then there are a couple of odd items: a full size replica suit of armor, and a Picasso lithograph.

This is clearly the end of the road for Steorn, but the scarcity of items on auction here does raise the question of what happened to the rest of Steorn’s assets. It’s possible that HephaHeat or some other spin-off company has adopted equipment that they would find useful, though it’s unclear how such an arrangement would work with Steorn’s liquidation agreement.

Standing guard no more

22 thoughts on “Steorn assets on the auction block”

  2. Well despite what people say Shaun is not on a beach in the Caribbean. Saw him having a few pints in McDaid’s on Harry Street. So he is still knocking about Dublin. I was going to ask him a few questions about Orbo but … naw …. not much point.

    I’d imagine at some point they will come out and admit Orbo never worked. A lot of people like attention. They’ll be back at some point.

      • Hah, nope! I think it was a pint.

        I know a couple of the lads have gotten jobs in other companies.

        Kinda strange to look back on it now. They kept it going for so long. But never even made one euro. Never sold anything. You have to wonder if there are other companies out there doing the same thing.

      • “I received a report from a longtime reader in Dublin who spoke yesterday with Jennifer Roe, the other friend of Steorn who is testing an OPhone for them, at the bar where she works. According to his report, Roe said that her OPhone worked fine for 5 days, without ever shutting down and recharging as Wallace’s has. It then went dead. She said that Steorn will be coming out to her today to fix it, and that she’ll then post an update on the Orbo Facebook page.”

        from the article! fucking call the long time friend! I like this site but you guys are useless at follow-up

        • Sorry, you must have mistaken us for a news source. Oh, and by the way, there is no “us”. It’s just one guy, Michael Ferrier, and passers-by who read and comment. Politely, in most cases.

  4. What happened to the blogs of the testers that actually received the goop filled Orbos?

    What happened to that Bartender who claimed to use it?

    Did they exist in the first place?

  6. Patents and trademarks can be bought and sold like any other asset.

    Steorn have eight patents registered or applied for (according to the European Patent Register). There may also be patent applications in the Irish patent register; I’ll check that some other time.

    WO2013108130 – WATER HEATER DEVICE WITH HEAT AND WATER RECOVERY – Withdrawn.
    EP2545565 – ELECTROMAGNETIC SYSTEM WITH NO MUTUAL INDUCTANCE AND AN INDUCTIVE GAIN – Grant of patent is intended.
    EP2514081 – ELECTRIC MOTOR WITH NO COUNTER ELECTROMOTIVE FORCE – Examination is in progress.
    WO2011001290 – PASSIVE MAGNETIC BEARING – Withdrawn.
    WO2009087476 – TORQUE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM – Withdrawn.
    EP2162754 – SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MEASURING ENERGY IN MAGNETIC INTERACTIONS – Withdrawn.
    EP2052226 – SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MEASURING INTERACTION OF LOADS – Withdrawn.
    EP1803133 – LOW ENERGY MAGNETIC ACTUATOR – Withdrawn.

    So, one patent will be granted, and another is being examined; the remaining six have been withdrawn for one reason or another. Please note that even if a patent is granted, that does not necessarily mean it is actually innovative; the EPO examiners are good but they’re only human, and a future lawsuit would put the patent under much greater scrutiny. So don’t read too much into the words “Granted” or “Under examination”.

    For the curious, you can examine Steorn’s patents here.
    https://register.epo.org/smartSearch?searchMode=smart&query=steorn
    You will see that the spellings under Sean’s name vary (Shaun, etc.) and I have only searched for Steorn. There may be other applications e.g. in the USA or (more likely) in the UK or Ireland. Irish applications would still be examined by the EPO, but I think the UK patents still have an independent board of Examiners. I’ll look into that, if people are interested.

    • Yup, one application in Ireland that is not included in the above post.

      “Self-contained magnetic field measurement probe”
      https://eregister.patentsoffice.ie/register/PTRegister.aspx?idappli=S2010/0038
      Withdrawn 🙂

      No patent applications in the UK for Steorn.

      It says the country of priority is the USA, but there is no US patent application number and the USPTO site returns nothing for Steorn.

      (If you’re wondering why Steorn would have a patent in Ireland and not in Europe, the reason is that it costs a lot less to apply for a patent in your home country, and if it is granted you get a 1 year priority on the European application. Common practice is to apply for a patent nationally first, and if that’s granted then go ahead with the EPO application, which is seriously expensive.)

    • Thanks for your research on McCarthy’s “patents” qwerty.

      As far as I know (very little!) about patents—certainly in Australia—the device and/or process doesn’t even have to be shown actually working, as described and/or intended, to receive a patent. Which is why we see so many devices—for example, complimentary and alternative “medical” woo—labelled PATENT PENDING. People often mistakenly believe that patent claim means the device works as claimed, as many did for McCarthy’s mythical over-unity contraptions.

      And as the old adage says: Bullshit baffles brains. Care for another Piña Colada Shaun?

      • You’re welcome.

        When you see “patent pending” or “patent protected” on a product, look up the application number online. Google should find it immediately, whether for the EU, USA, UK, Australia or wherever. Often the patent will be for something utterly unrelated to the product itself, e.g. an innovative way of folding the cardboard of the packaging. This allows the maker to put the magic words “Patent protected” on the product, leading consumers to believe that it is the product itself that is protected.

        Also, every patent office has rules that prevent applying for a perpetual motion machine or similar, saying that the application must be accompanied by a working model. This is why none of Steorn’s patent applications mention overunity or perpetual motion, etc. This is actually a standard practice in many technological industries: if you can’t patent the whole thing, try to patent one or more key parts of it.

        • Further updates on the patent front. One of the two remaining patents held by Steorn which I listed above, EP2545565, is now “deemed to be withdrawn” because the renewal fee was not paid. That’s interesting, seeing as how the previous status of that patent was “Grant of patent is intended”.

          The other remaining patent, for which examination is in progress, EP2514081, is still “alive” but the name of the representative has been changed, on 23 May of this year. Now THAT is interesting. Someone cares enough about that patent to do something with it. A change of representative would typically mean that it has been sold to someone, and that someone, as a routine matter, would change the representative to their patent agent of choice. If someone wanted to go digging for dirt about Steorn, that’s where I would start. But this is as far as I dig personally, I’m afraid.

  7. The suit of armour is just perfect.

    So there were only 14 monkey-skull cases? Seems like there were photos of more.

    No intellectual property mentioned at all. Not sure how that would normally be disposed of. But the administrators aren’t going to pretend there is any.

    • Yep, only 14. Amazing ain’t it when McCarthy claimed to have “sold out” of the first batch of (apparently) one thousand of its first production run. And the pics he posted seem to show stacks of dozens of them, as did his pics of the O-Cubes. Or were they simply empty, dummy cases set up to convince the investors that they were actually in production, and ready for shipping… and working?

  8. I haven’t stopped laughing since I read the auction listing (thanks to Aiden). Seriously? Selling a replica suit of amour and a €500 lithograph, plus a dozen empty—and totally useless—plastic “monkey” cases is going to help towards recouping €23 million? And what about the hundreds of 9V batteries used to dummy up the few fake results McCarthy grudgingly publicised when pushed to show some progress over the previous decade? Surely they’d be worth a bit more than a worthless tin suit LOL.

    McCarthy and his criminal cohorts must be laughing all the way to their banks in Majorca or the Bahamas or wherever.

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