That is not a proper answer. If you publish a design, it becomes prior act, and nobody can patent it. You can even do that in the patent office without filling

That is not a proper answer. If you publish a design, it becomes prior act, and nobody can patent it. You can even do that in the patent office without filling a patent, making them the registration of your design, without patenting it. It seems clear to me that what they want is to appropriate someone else design because I do not believe they have a working prototype of this.