:Well, of course, since it's a piece of ficticious crap, the answer is nobody. On a more serious note, designs can be patented, texts and images can be copyrighted, but ideas and concepts cannot be owned. Once sombody came up with the idea of creating conductors for electricity (e.g., wires), they could copyright the design of a machine for making wire, but couldn't claim ownership of the entire concept of a conductor made of a strand of metal. the book seems to take the position that this is wrong. The "motor" couldn't be owned by anybody if it simply relied on physical properties that a certain design took advantage of. This is one of the major failings of the novel, IMO: it relies on a fantasy of perpetual motion.