Gentlemen, I have been very involved with patents in the past, they are very very expensive if you go down the line of using a patent agent, 30yrs ago it cost me 23,000 pounds sterling. If you work within a small group and all in that group are privy to all the work and is available to all that group and can be proven, then there is prior art and it can not be patented by an another though it can be used by anyone who wishes to do so, is that not what we want? Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_artThere are otherways, file for a patent 300$ you then have 1 year before paying more money which gives you time to find a money man to pay the mountain of bills that will start flooding in, or let the patent app: die which also gives you registered prior art and the only person that could reapply is you. The latter is used by many companies and why you see many applications for the same thing with reference to the "prior" application number, this will give you another year, etc. Regards Mike 
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