The memo is from 1989. That was when P&F's cold fusion was popular and the patent office probably got many thousands of applications in a huge flood. They would have had to organize a method of segregating them out and assigning them to specialists who had familiarized themselves with patent issues in the field. I suspect that's what the memo was about rather than some nefarious plot by some unknown entity to suppress cold fusion patents.
I further suspect that there are few cold fusion patents because the applications did not meet the patent's office requirements to award a patent. I doubt very much that there is some conspiracy against cold fusion. The patent office decisions can be appealed and if the appeal fails, I'm pretty sure that they can be sued. In any case, there's the press and the internet. If there was merit to a lucrative cold fusion patent the patent office refused to grant, I would guess some deep pockets could be found to fund a popular appeal as well as a law suit.
