Well then the poor guy is screwed because relying on trade secrecy for something that is easily discoverable once you have the hardware is no protection at all. At least with a patent you can protect some of your rights in the Western world.
Actually, he can control the franchises, and manufacture the item so it is sealed, and so it is kept under control of the franchisees. Then he only has to trust the franchisees, and can write huge monetary penalties into the contracts for disclosure.
FOod companies manage to hide their trade secrets of things like what is in secret sauce or the formulas for drinks, even though all of us have a Coke in the frig, and the products are manufactured all over the world.
Not saying that this explains anything in this case, just that in theory if you have an idea that is extremely obvious, and maybe even DONE already by someone else who just didn’t figure out it’s value, you can make a living using trade secrets and hiding the particulars.
All this is predicated on the E-Cat being a real honest new tech device and not a scam. If it’s for real, he has made good decision considering the way this ‘global economy’ works. If it’s a scam, then it won’t much matter. And a patent is only good for a time. Plus, if you publish your idea, which you have to to get a patent, all someone else has to do is tinker and change a few things to ‘improve’ the design and they now have a patent, too. He/they are trying to get as much as they can before the system details are made known to the public, and if that is so, then I can’t fault them for that..................