Looks like Cold Fusion is Hot again...

The great universities will bleed the suckers if they can, just like any other business.

"Huizenga's three miracles"

And that is the part where the science kicks in.

there's nothing worse than having excess power always laying around

I don't know if I would consider it being hot again. I did some reading up on cold fusion about 6 years ago for a college case study. The main problem with with cold fusion is it takes more power to get a reaction from it than the power it produces and there is an issue about being able to capture that power to use it effectively. Until they can conquer those two issues, then cold fusion isn't a viable source of power.

Nor is it understood.

A very detailed patent was just issued in Italy:

The European Patent office has granted a patent for the Francesco Piantelli's invention of process for producing energy from a nickel-hydrogen reaction.

European Patent Office published the certificate on January 16th, 2013. All documents associated with this application can be found here.

Sergio Focardi, who assisted Andrea Rossi in the development of the E-Cat had worked with Piantelli in the study and development of LENR from nickel-hydrogen processes.

UPDATE:

Here is a link to the full text of the patent, hosted on Daniele Passerini's site:

http://www.22passi.it/downloads/EP2368252B1[1].pdf

Did they take out a patent on it just in case they are able to isolate the process and utilize it?

This is purely a guess on my part, but I think they want to assure that they get some reward for their research which led to Rossi's E-CAT (for sales in Italy, of course).

Rossi has "blogged" that he is not worried about their patent.

Patents do two things:

1. Protect intellectual properties.

2. Create value for the invention.

The latter may be more applicable in this case. We will have to wait and see how this shakes out. I am still wanting to see what a formal and real peer review reveals. At this point there should be no downside to doing that as it would bolster the value of the claim more than any patent could - if it holds water.