Hi all,
It's Friday! Time for another set of weekly updates:
The Gem Updates:US Patent Situation: We've gathered up to 5 additional pieces of evidence to fully rebut the CTHR rebuttal...but have not gotten a response from USPTO on how to present these for the re-exam.
It looks like at this point we will get a decision from the USPTO by October.
If it does not go our way and we were not able to present our evidence that fully rebuts CTHR's attacks on our original evidence, then we will appeal.
I'm quite confident that once we get the evidence into consideration, things will go our way so the real question at this point is do we have to wait until a decision and then appeal or can we save some time and present it now.
So more to follow on that, but the long run it is very likely the patent will be overturned, just a matter of how long it takes - but hopefully worst case is 2013 at this point.
Growth updates: On more exciting news - we've grown the first couple 'baby' Amora Gem crystals in our new setup. The results - spectacular. Very pleased with the initial test results, and I would say it's reasonably likely we may end up at E color rather than F for final production.
That's the good news - the bad news is that the growth rate is slow and that means two things:
1 - Even when we get into production, the quantity we can produce per month is going to be quite limited. And thus, don't expect that we'll have a big flood of thousands of Amora GEM's available...think more like pink diamonds where you only get a handful at a time. We will likely end up having to ration out each months production between BTD and the various resellers.
2 - Pricing may end up being a bit higher (i.e. could get up to $600-$700/ct, with $600/ct being more likely than $700). I will note that I did point out that our $500 pricing was very aggressive and it may turn out to be too aggressive. That said, we'll have to wait and see where the final growth rates end up before we can say for sure, but it is possible that pricing will have to go a bit higher.
For comparison, the Amora GEM is growing 3-6x *slower* than Moissanite...so you can see that all thing being equal, Moissanite is a lot cheaper to produce.
And somewhat interesting, but Amora GEM is growing right in the same range as lab grown diamond.
Overall though, things are steadily moving forward and I'm extremely pleased with the initial quality of the first baby Amora Gems.
Status of the new 'Mega-bot' Robot for cutting: After some additional discussion, it's looking more and more like we are going to take the large financial plunge and proceed with setting up the mega-bot which will end taking over *all* cutting for BTD. Not just for the Amora GEM, but also Asha and Avarra.
The Mega-bot will also be able to cut melee, which is something we hope to expand the Amora GEM into eventually so that rings could be sold with both Amora Gem centers as well as with matching side stones from Amora Gem melee.
BTD Updates:US Shipping office closed next week: Due to staff vacations, we'll be closing our shipping office next week and also doing inventory to get prepped for the busy Fall Season.
Thus, nothing will ship out next week but shipping will resume on Aug 20th and continue uninterrupted the remainder ofthe year.
Status of Avarra H&A Sapphire/Rubies: I've held off moving forward with these because of the situation with whether we were going to proceed with the mega-bot or not.
Since it looks like we will proceed, that means that Avarra H&A's would start to flow out around the end of September, cut via the mega-bot, along with photos and more info at that point.
RingExplorer.com updates: Facebook login is now supported, so you can either make an account or use your FB login to be able to manage your favorites as you search through the various rings and bands.
Misc:Since things are rapidly moving forward I haven't had as much time to write any additional posts for the Fundamental of Matter series, and may not until after Amora GEM is actually launched.
But, since we have talked a lot about how stars have powered the creation of the various elements including precious metals, I'll tie in an interesting infographic about the power of our own sun in terms of energy.
Shown below is an infographic comparing all the possible sources of energy available to us on earth and how they compare to the potential power available in one year from the sun.
To explain it:
The far left brown circle is the amount of energy used by humans in 2009 (16 TerraWatts).
The circles on the far right, are in relative scale, the amount of
total power that could be generated from any of the finite sources - gas, petroleum, nuclear (fission), and coal. Thus, if you were able to mine all the available coal/uranium/oil, etc. out of the planet's near crust, how much power you would get before you 'tapped out'.
In the center, is possible
annual (not total, but annual) production of various renewable energy sources - wind, hydro, biomass etc.
The giant there is solar power - 23,000 TerraWatts *per year* potential.
Anyway, it gives you a good idea of the true power of the sun, which of course is just one star amongst trillions in our universe....and it makes it pretty clear where the long term future power supply for humans is
Have a great weekend!
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