Someone was kind enough to dig up this document: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2107_01.htm
QUOTE: Situations where an invention is found to be "inoperative" and therefore lacking in utility are rare, and rejections maintained solely on this ground by a Federal court even rarer. In many of these cases, the utility asserted by the applicant was thought to be "incredible in the light of the knowledge of the art, or factually misleading" when initially considered by the Office. In re Citron, 325 F.2d 248, 253, 139 USPQ 516, 520 (CCPA 1963). Other cases suggest that on initial evaluation, the Office considered the asserted utility to be inconsistent with known scientific principles or "speculative at best" as to whether attributes of the invention necessary to impart the asserted utility were actually present in the invention. In re Sichert, 566 F.2d 1154, 196 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1977). However cast, the underlying finding by the court in these cases was that, *based on the factual record of the case*, it was clear that the invention could not and did not work as the inventor claimed it did. Indeed, the use of many labels to describe a single problem (e.g., a false assertion regarding utility) has led to some of the confusion that exists today with regard to a rejection based on the "utility" requirement. Examples of such cases include: an invention asserted to change the taste of food using a magnetic field (Fregeau v.Mossinghoff, 776 F.2d 1034, 227 USPQ 848 (Fed. Cir. 1985)), a perpetual motion machine (Newmanv. Quigg, 877 F.2d 1575, 11 USPQ2d 1340 (Fed. Cir. 1989)), a flying machine operating on "flapping or flutter function" (In re Houghton, 433 F.2d 820, 167 USPQ 687 (CCPA 1970)), a "cold fusion" process for producing energy (In re Swartz, 232 F.3d 862, 56 USPQ2d 1703, (Fed. Cir. 2000)) . . . END QUOTE I know nothing about Swartz's machine, and I have no idea what the "factual record of the case" includes. I suppose it does work, but it is conceivable that the Patent Office is right and this particular device does not work. I have seen some cold fusion claims that struck me as unproven. However, many other cold fusion devices do work. There is more proof of that than you will find for many other nascent technologies. Before Rossi there were no practical, commercially useful cold fusion reactors. But the P.O. rules do not disqualify a device on the grounds that it is not practical. The problem may be that the people trying to get patents for the other devices -- the ones which definitely do work -- ran out of money, time or gumption, or they died. Anyway, it is clear from this document and others that the management at the Patent Office, the DoE and at some other leading institutions in the United States do not believe that cold fusion exists. Secretary Chu is a good example. I have encountered countless others. They are determined to prevent any cold fusion research from being funded, because they think it is fraud, or impossible, or they think it was never replicated. That is what they say. I have every reason to believe they mean what they say. They do not hide this opinion. They do not consider it controversial. Moreover, they do not know anything about cold fusion, and they *absolutely refuse*to learn anything or glance at LENR-CANR.org. They say "I will not waste my time looking at such garbage." I have heard that a million times. I tell them the papers are published by EPRI, the Navy, the NSF and BARC. They do not believe me, and they never bother to check. Again, that is what they tell me, and I have no reason to doubt them. A few of these opponents claim to be experts in some related field, yet they say they cannot understand the papers. Mary Yugo is a prime example. She claim to be an expert in calorimetry yet she says she cannot make head or tail of McKubre's paper. Those two statements cannot be reconciled; if you are an expert in calorimetry, McKubre's paper is baby food for you. It is what you do every day. It is not possible that Yugo has made calorimeters yet she cannot follow this paper. I have no idea whether she actually knows anything about calorimeters since she has not made any technical assertions about calorimetry. I have no way of judging whether she has actually tried to read this paper and failed to understand it, since she has made no comments about it. But I am sure that no genuine expert in calorimetery will have difficulty with this paper. I am equally sure that no expert in calorimetry who reads the paper will find an error in it. There are no errors in this, or in any other major cold fusion paper. If there were errors, some opponent would have found them years ago. McKubre's papers has been downloaded and by tens of thousands of people. It isn't as if no one has checked them. - Jed
