Earlier quoted context omitted.
Common sense, unless that term is no longer applicable to modern times. If this were something real, we would be hearing about Rossi's valiant efforts to secure patent protection, not customers.
[deleted]
Only a perfect fool would try to market a breakthrough device in advance of securing patent protection. So the explanation is obvious -- the device doesn't perform as claimed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%29
"In January 2011 Andrea Rossi and Professor Sergio Focardi claimed to have successfully demonstrated commercially viable cold fusion in a device called an Energy Catalyzer, although in an interview Rossi claimed that his Energy Catalyzer does not work on the basis of cold fusion, but weak [force] nuclear reactions.[15] The international patent application received an unfavorable international preliminary report on patentability because it seemed to "offend against the generally accepted laws of physics and established theories" and to overcome this problem the application should have contained either experimental evidence or a firm theoretical basis in current scientific theories.[16] Journalists were not allowed to examine the core of the reactor, and there is uncertainty about the viability of the invention.[17]"